Worse than 2 Pairs of Handcuffs: REDUX :
by HospitallerInaBoat
Summary: Attempted rewrite. AU (HIATUS) (Older Work)
1. Chapter 1 - Three Wanderers

**_"_** ** _On my dead earth can I eat, sleep, wander and sing._**

 ** _On my dead earth, through this nuclear haze._**

 ** _On my dead earth can I do my thing._**

 ** _On my dead earth can I kill and kill for days._**

 ** _On my dead earth can I see space in its throng._**

 ** _Can I wonder what mankind did wrong?"_**

* * *

 **-0-0-0-**

* * *

 **REDUX**

* * *

 **I**

 **Three Wanderers**

* * *

He always had wondered what had happened to the street during those final hours in the past, and he meant this specific spot out of the entire avenue.

It was strange because where everything else was simplistically marred by mounds of debris, or flipped over cars, here there was a _crater,_ and it left an open divet ten men wide and five height's deep.

Roughly, this section of the road resembled a giant, earthy spoon. The crater was oval-like in its complexity, and water pipes stuck from the edges of its brown weathered flesh like splintered, rusting ribs. Sometimes, when he was approaching it, it resembled a mouth to him, gaping, gawking even, wishing to indulge in loud gossip and cackling laughter with some unseen listener in the sky above.

Even now, as he traipsed down the street's pavement and came upon the familiar feature, he found himself hungering in that reservoir of curiosity. It was a good question; what _had_ blown up nearly two hundred years ago to make the thing?

Had it been a car? Or a tanker truck? Maybe, just _maybe,_ on the verge of apocalyptic holocaust, someone had detonated an actual explosive device in some bid of futile revenge or petty anger. Maybe a military plane had spun out and shot the street with a missile. Or maybe….

-or maybe some god had farted and blown a hole in the earth right here with their rambunctious stench made mortal by sheer concussive force.

 _Sounds about right._

Gravel, and stray wardings of granular ruination slicking the street like some kind of carpet, crunched and whispered under the heavy trod of his heels as he approached. Observing the gaping crater in the ground through the green-hued display of his suit's internal ocular system, details were made slightly fuzzy, and albeit sickly by even a minute touch of the night-vision's lesser qualities.

Feeling the joints of his suit creak with his movements, he took a final step forwards and teetered on the edge of the hole.

The armor layering his form was composited and multi-layered. It was esteemed with powerful servo-motors and clustered musculature tendons that were meant to mimic as much flexibility and adaptability of the human body as could be rendered. Needless to say, despite its visage as a walking tank; it got by fairly nicely and _even_ with a tiny taste of style.

It wasn't like Sanford Tobs could complain; this suit had gotten him through thick and thin. He doubted he would've been possessed by any sense of care even _if_ the thing didn't make him look like a complete badass on top of it.

Luckily for him, it _did._ Thus, as a titan in the dark of the evening, with a pair of yellow-tinted, demonic eye-lenses personifying him in the shade, the scavenger reared back and glared with accusatory coldness at the other side of the crater.

 _I hate climbing._

"-Just another by-product of what happens when god gives ya' legs and not _at-mos-spheric thrus-_ stores' like mine, ha-haaa~!" –Came a metallic voice ringed and embraced with static from the man's rear.

A tiny thrum of laughter purred through the Power Armor's grill vox in response to this. Sanford didn't realize that he had spoken his thoughts aloud in a moment of clairvoyant apprehension.

What had he been thinking? Complaining around his best friend like that? He'd walked into this.

"Don't start, dude." Sanford shook his head, grinning devilishly under the snarling visage of his insectoid helmet. "It was just a pause, not what you're thinking."

"But I'd be abhorred if I took it as anything _but_ what was I thinking, sir!" The whoosh of a Rob-Co manufactured, contract-built engine thruster was prevalent on the wind. A second later, and a levitating, multi-armed orb of metal and circuitry was beside the armored man, illuminating the evening with a flickering bulb of amber light from its engine mouth. "Let it be known to all far and _wide!_ " –Erupted from a speech-box somewhere inside the maddened machine's chassis. "-That Sanford Tobs…. _Is afraid of heights~! Ha~!_ "

"You are relentless, Hancock." The scavenger sighed audibly, his plated fingers wriggling with a sudden urge to swat the Mr. Gutsy robot away like he was some sort of errant fly. "Is it too much to ask you to concentrate on what we're actually here for?"

" _Hmmm,_ let me think on that for a moment…" Hancock bobbed in the air once, as if he'd been stabbed by some kind of secondary sensation of insult at the suggestion. The military-model machine's grisly, mechanical voice sharply rung through the audio receivers in Sanford's helmet, their mocking, smug tones causing the man to grit his teeth out of habit. "- _Ah!_ I've got your answer, sir! Do you remember…"

Sanford grunted when a serrated buzz-saw blade poked teasingly into his armored ribcage with a tiny _clank~!_ –of steel to reinforced synthetic.

"- _the bridge two months ago~?_ "

"Aw, hell, Han'." Sanford groaned.

" _Ha~!_ Your little monkey face under that helmet is probably _priceless_ right now!" Hancock cackled, zipping in front of the scavenger, and somehow appearing giddy, despite his lack of any facial features whatsoever, aside from the three buggish ocular devices protruding from the top of his chassis. "Those Gunners put up one hell of a fight! A fight to match the ages! A fight to make even _Uncle_ Sam wince at the blood-letting, shit-flinging calamity of it all! But best of all that fine, fine evening? _Watching the San-of-the-Ford get whacked in the arse' with an anti-personnel rocket, and go tumbling off the side of the fuckin' bridge~! Haaa~!_ "

-As judged by the rampant and commonly non-sensical garbling that spewed from Hancock's speech directives like sludge from an opened sewage line; his connectivity to reality at best was… _strained,_ but somewhat present.

Despite how annoying the robot was, Sanford was left to wonder; where would he be without Han' and his anti-Communist, Nazi-hating speeches and rants?

 _Probably in some dark hole like this one, except, you know, dead and full of bullet holes, I'd bet._

Still, perhaps ungratefully, Sanford muttered something unintelligible and hostile under his breath. He reached out with an armored arm, and batted the airborne robot from his path without so much as a flex of true effort.

"- _Ha-haaa~!_ Oh, oh you're just too _easy_ , sir!" Hancock chided, floating mockingly in the space beside his companion. "Look on the bright side of things; at least that oversized tin-can you wear all the time cushioned the impact! But _really,_ could a simple fall do you in? I think not! _But,_ hell! It was funnier than Hitler's art career watching you flap your arms like some fucked up pigeon!"

"You're digging a hole deeper than this crater, Han'." Sanford warned as he took a step towards the cracked pavement's ledge. "I might just pick up a sharpie back home, and draw a few errant penises on your plating when you're recharging your cells."

" _-Hey~!_ Keep your monkey-humor away from me!" The robot snapped sharply. "It's not my fault you flea-bitten primates have to walk around with your Johnsons swinging in the breeze!"

"At least we _have_ Johnsons," Sanford leaned over, and snickered. "-and _balls,_ unlike some people."

" _You Chinese-loving son-of-a-bitch~!_ "

"Last one down's a Nazi ball-washer." Sanford didn't give his robot proper timing to react. With a single step forwards did he let gravity take over, _this time;_ willingly, in contrast to the prior mishap his companion had mocked him over.

Sanford's metallic form actually created a brief, whistling scream as he descended several feet in free-fall, his arms craned predatorily, his legs daggered and prepared for the impact.

 ** _Crunch~!_** –went the X-01's heels as they stabbed into the earth, casting detritus and dust everywhere.

At the bottom of the crater's slick, Sanford rose from a brief kneel, his gauntlets sweeping majestically and with trained precision to his suit's hips.

"Seems like I landed pretty good that time." Sanford nonchalantly called back, his fingers locking on the hilts of very familiar tools of self-defense. "Han'? Your scanners picking up anything out here?"

"Nothin' beside a cheating pigeon-man wearing a metal skirt!" Hancock snapped, and with a zip of his thruster did he fly down the crater's earthy wall vertically, and keen-out the acceleration by Sanford's side. "By default that makes _you_ the Nazi-ball-washer! So have fun sand-papering Himmler's nuts, you hairy bitch!"

"I'll keep a note to do that." Sanford stepped forwards, his night-vision sweeping the large crater's bottom with almost malevolent intent. It was seldom the case where he maneuvered through the world and _didn't_ find himself in danger out here. The Commonwealth was still a hotbed of ghoulies and ghosties, even after almost fourteen years of skirting it back and forth and killing whatever got in his way.

Sanford always liked to view himself as simply surviving; it was what _other_ people had said that had esteemed him into the eyes of more powerful political entities. Flashbacks of his little adventure months ago stemmed into his brain like hot wildfire.

"I know that perplexed look." Hancock drawled, his tone evening out as play-time began to recede from them in the presence of a possible threat down here. "What's that adept brain of yours wiggling and farting over _now?_ "

"Nothing." Sanford snorted. "Scanners?"

"Emptier than the list of things Russia's done right!" Hancock chortled, his three robotic limbs clicking and shifting as their weaponized systems claim to play anyhow. There was his Plasma Gun, the Flamethrower, and the dreaded _buzzsaw_ that Sanford had seen stained brilliant crimson all too many times. "But scanners are like women! You never know when _yes_ means _no!_ Ha-ha!"

"Damn, talk about a bur-"

 ** _Clack~!_** –one second Hancock was there, floating in the air, and the next he was not.

Sanford cut himself off and whipped around to face his west, where he watched in confusion as a sphere of black mass with an amber-flicking bottom bounced across the ground like a rogue sports ball. The craziest part of the exchange was listening to the vile and vulgar cacophony of vulgarity that unevenly vomited from said sphere as it rolled to a stop nearby.

" _-sonofabitch-cocksuckin'-brick layin' fucktardiness of the Revolutionary fuckin' war-~!_ " Hancock ranted from the dirt, his limbs clanking and rolling as he attempted to right himself back up. "- _I should've known that the_ bitch _would've showed up on que! Such is the curse of an honest G.I of the United States of America!_ "

Sanford shook his head and bent down to retrieve the heavy item that had hit Hancock and caused the tumble. His joints whirred as he retracted, holding aloft a rock that was bigger than his head, his systems rendering it weightless, like it was no more than a bundle of loose paper. There was still a tiny fleck of olive-drab paint on the side of it from where it had scuffed Hancock's hide.

It was a good thing his Mr. Gutsy was made of… _tougher stuff,_ or else their third companion's strength just might have damaged something important.

"Wicked good aim, girl." Sanford sniggered, tossing the large rock over his pauldron, where it smacked hollowly away. "There isn't one for me too, is there?"

Sanford was looking up the cliff-like face of the crater slick, where at the rim above, stood a towering, seven-foot-tall shadow of lithe uniformity.

Though the light through the cloudy nighttime sky was fickle and unadulteratedly minute; somehow did it play off of the armored layers of scales networking down her body, giving her a ghostly, and sharp tint of silver at all her jagged edges and sweeping curves.

"- _Non, mon cher,_ but if you had finished that sentence, my hand would have been forced."

Though formed with a complicated network of feminine arteries, her voice was entirely inhuman as it was alien, and powerful to behold. The thrum of a thousand muted locusts curled like a serpent's tongue beneath an underlayer of rumbling thickness to contrast the higher pitched uniformity of her throat.

Talons as long as his forearms clenched the earth of the crater's rim eagerly, flexing as retractable, black-colored nails slid in and out of their moorings within her fingers. Her armored arms dispersed for a defined collar, a creamy breast and underbelly, and a highlighting notion of the curvature he had come to find stirring from her.

As Sanford drank in the moonlight flavored sight, Nyx's throat chortled deeply at him, resonating with a reptilian purr.

"You're gawking." She mused from above.

"Kind of hard not to." Sanford quirked his head.

Nyx produced a flattered hum, and the air snapped under a whip's crack as her tail flashed behind her.

Soundlessly- that is, until she landed –she was a black blur in the night that hit the dirt with a predator's expertise and grace. Sanford was staring up at a taller being than himself within seconds as she crossed over to him, his helmed face matching only to her clavicle.

There was a part of him in that moment taken by the mixture of her bestial appearance, and her intoxicating presence. It was the stark contrast between these things that had utterly transfixed his interest in her in the past.

Where he gave off an aura of cold metal, Nyx resonated a growing cloud of soupy miasma that made his head swim. He supposed that could've been himself being blinded by her importance to him, or because of the pheromones he knew she plumed whenever she was in his company. At the end of the day; he supposed it did not matter.

"How are ya'?" The scavenger grinned, chuckling when a pair of layered, armored ram-horns butted into the metal of his helmet.

" _Tres satisfait._ " The Deathclaw rumbled thickly, her golden eyes glinting in the dark. " _Ai-je manque beaucoup?_ "

"No." Sanford grinned, reaching up to and patting her shoulder. "Me and Han' were just about to start sweeping."

"- _Yeah~!_ You hear that, lizard-slaps? _Me_ and Sanford! _Me!_ Not you! You Communist iguana!"

Nyx's placated expression was abolished for a fanged snarl as something tinny bounced harmlessly off one of her horns. Sanford looked down between her hoof-like feet and his boots to see that Hancock had tossed a crumpled soda can at her.

 _Here we go-_ flashed through his mind with a pained realization.

Nyx's draconic, long chops curled in a violently intending sneer, and her armored, crocodilian tail whipped behind her.

"Have you an idea how brashly _annoying_ you are, _usiner?_ " Nyx growled, turning on the Mr. Gutsy angrily. "I could understand _in detail_ your rants from almost half a mile away. _Tres intelligent?_ I think not."

"Things were going just fine until _you_ showed up and started puking your escargot-speech all over the place!" Hancock snapped, his buzzsaw metallically whining as the blade spun. "That entire country's just an ashbin anyhow! Just like the damn Brits, and the Belgians! And _all of Europe!_ Ha! Damn nukes did somethin' good for a change. You fuckin' Europeans, what with your white-man's sense of entitlement-!"

"She's not even human, you dick." Sanford commented as he stepped past his two fuming allies. "Now, if we're ready to play nice in the sandbox, you two, I'd like to comb the place and be out of here within an hour. That sound reasonable?"

" _Half-an-hour_ if we're lucky." Hancock snapped, all three of his ocu-lenses locked on the displeased reptile. "My reputation's at stake here, lizard-lick! What would the world do if it knew _The Han'_ was in a tug-o-war with _you?_ "

" _Avec pitie;_ it would weep at how such an innocent soul as myself was cursed with your company." The Deathclaw harrumphed, turning her snout up at him. "Or perhaps I would find fortune, and a meteorite would crush you into dust on a fine day."

" _-God already tried that!_ " Hancock laughed mockingly, making her scowl. "He threw _you_ at us! You fat ass! _And he still missed! Ha~!_ "

" _Gee'_ this is taking longer than it needs to." Sanford called back from nearby. "I'll probably have to spend _double the time_ as one guy sweeping this stupid crater."

"Coming, _mon cher._ " Nyx's attitude miraculously dropped from her tone at this, and then returned sourly when she looked back down at Hancock. "This is not over in the slightest, _usiner._ "

" _Ditto,_ you fucking newt!" The Mr. Gutsy snapped. "One of these days, I'll _skin you,_ and make you into a nice, new pair of _Democracy-Brand Snakeskin Boots!_ "

"And I will find the pair of toaster-ovens you were born from and step on them." Nyx shrugged her mighty shoulders. "We all chase our own vendettas in this world, I would figure a being of such _malice_ like yourself would know that."

"Your poetic-speak won't save you!" Hancock ranted, even as the Deathclaw began to trot away with disinterest. "I'm not through with you, alligator-buns! _Mark my words! I'll have your sooouulllll-~!_ "

 ** _Clack~!_** –another rock hit Hancock right in the center of his chassis and knocked him to the ground raggedly. His cursing was muted by Nyx's heavenly, inhuman laughter.

After all, it was pretty hysterical to witness. Sanford had thrown that one.

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

The Commonwealth could be compared quite acutely to a realm of recycling and repurposing, thus leading to an economy fueled by the endless rebuilding of a great deal of products from the Old World.

Some people made their caps by supplying ammunition to the many warring factions of Boston, or by producing and modifying weapons. Still, some did it through robotics, others through trade, and some through murder.

Sanford Tobs attained his fortune through the art of scavenging, and he had been doing that since he was a lad fresh out of the cryo tube in that blasted Vault.

His journey had taken him far and wide across New England, and the treks hadn't been easy. It was safe to say that there were folks beyond and about who pondered at Sanford's story of humility and for the lives of themselves couldn't understand it.

Sanford had destroyed the Institute, beaten back the Enclave, crushed the Raiders and had almost single-handedly redefined the face of the Commonwealth. His legacy alone warranted so much more than what he lived to do.

But to Sanford, power and glory were things to be misused and abused, and he did not want to go down the same path as his enemies, or even his own mother and father.

Folks labeled him a hero, a one-man army, and the Brotherhood had even attempted to indoctrinate him into its ranks. Gangers and thugs across the Commonwealth feared him, the Minutemen were itchy around him, and the Super Mutants knew him as 'The Tank' –ever since he had found the suit of X-01 armor in an errant military transport.

There was so much he could do with all those titles, and those names.

But instead, Sanford Tobs was quite content to put all of that aside, forget of its existence, and fervently dig through people's garbage.

Some called it foolish, he called it therapeutic. The world had too much death in it already without another power-hungry person of great skill running amok.

He had always been Sanford the Scavenger, never Sanford the Warrior.

Tin cans, rocks and pieces of rusting pipe clattered around his heels in a great storm of rackets and uneven music. In the shade of the old aluminum over his head, Sanford dug through the piles of detritus with his gauntlet and whistled a quiet tune.

He stood inside an old and blown out refugee tent, one constructed of plywood stilts layered over with strips of aluminum and cardboard. There was no telling how long ego it had been erected and by who had done it. The great crater in this patch of road was notable for that; being a stoppage point for travelers and immigrants to and from the Commonwealth. Sanford liked to sift through the crater slick at least once a month to see what people left behind.

Knowing the carelessness of humanity, even in a time of such rationing and danger; there was plenty of a bounty to be had.

Sanford's rucksack that was tied around the X-01's thigh was bulging freakishly with all kinds of good finds he'd made throughout the garbage piles marring the crater's slick. In this old campsite alone, he had found energy cells, batteries, trinkets worth melting down and stray caps.

Scavenging was a good method of intake if one knew how to perform it properly, and generally speaking, Sanford knew where to look and where not to look. It was all about which minute details to find that no else cared about, and the niche was set.

It had worked thus far for him, and he didn't plan on stopping that now.

 _Nice and quiet,_ his whistling played out as a faint and ghostly chime through the box amplifier of his helmet. Comically, the X-01 looked quite odd when he was bent over, kneeling and lowering himself, swiping around the ground and in low containers and boxes like a beggar. Sanford was happier for it. It was better than what he'd been doing during that mess months earlier.

 _Found Nyx through that._

Of course, the Deathclaw was always on his mind as of late. There was a reason that she permeated the air with her presence around him and it wasn't simply a bodily function that was unwitting.

That barrier had been broken before, and he was actually prideful of it. He'd never have worded it to her in such a way himself, but the _conquest_ of such a power had tapped into the spark of his more corrupt self.

It was the part of him that _did_ seek glory from all the tales and legends he'd spun in his bids for peace in the Commonwealth. It was the selfish part, the _heroic_ part. Sanford made a distinction. To him, _trying_ to be a hero ended in nothing but more problems. There was a difference between being heroic and being brave. He wasn't sure he could define that for someone, however, if they had asked him.

This, he found quaint and contradictory.

But then again, both of those things were inherent parts of his nature, and people's opinions on that could mightily screw off.

"Anything?" Sanford interrupted his whistling as he heard Hancock's thruster motor hissing quietly behind him. The robot's chassis clanged and rattled as whatever goodies he'd pick up banged around in the storage compartment inside him.

"We're _rich_ , sir!" Hancock announced, levitating inside the ruined shelter, his form black and amber in the night air. "Because of my _entrepreneur's_ eye! We're that much closer to getting enough parts to build that doomsday-robot wife I've always wanted!"

"We never agreed to that." Sanford shot back quickly. "You, plus an even _bigger_ robot, equals _bad things._ "

"It equals a match made in heaven, by all hell!" Hancock denied, his buzzsaw and subsequent grabber-claw arm sifting aside some stones on the ground below him. "You know, sir, even though that stupid iguana's a pain in the balls, I've got to hand it to you; I'm envious!"

"No you're not." The scavenger laughed, tugging something moderately sized free of a stray plate of aluminum and some wood boards. "How long, Han'? Have you scoured these blasted sands with me? Eleven years, maybe twelve? The Hancock I know did not just say that."

"I never meant to diminish _The Han's_ standing." The robot guffawed, raising his claw to his ocu-lenses, where he twisted it to and fro, examining a spent shell casing. "All I'm saying, is that even a single-handed Communist-killing G.I like myself doesn't _always_ need to ride off into the sunset-" –His claw twitched, and he lost the casing somewhere on the ground. "- _alone._ "

"That's the most wistful thing I think I've ever heard you say." Sanford chuckled, wading heavily through the trash piles until he was at the mouth of the shelter with his robot. "You know, you're not one to _want._ So, what's up?"

" _Up?_ " The Mr. Gutsy bobbed in the air, his ocu-lenses whirring whilst they focused on Sanford. "Nothing's up! That's hogwash! Nonsense! _Scat-piled skullduggery!_ Get out of my face with it!"

"Hey, look, just a measurement of concern." The scavenger laughed, holding up his armored hands for peace. "We don't frequently enjoy these moments of… I dunno'… _brotherhood?_ "

" _Ha!_ " Hancock wheezed- which was awkward, seeing as he lacked lungs –and Sanford frowned as his shoulder jerked from a good tap of the robot's buzzsaw blade. Any normal person would've flinched and been fearful at the weapon being used so cordially. Sanford was so used to it that he no longer noticed.

"What's so funny?" He instead quirked a brow.

" _You!_ Aw, _hell,_ trying to imagine being part of the same litter as you is almost nightmare inducing!" Hancock laughed. "-Ah, but, _yeah,_ maybe, _positively._ No matter how much my dashingly good looks may trump your ugliness, sir, we _are_ linked as sibling-G.I's in a metaphorical sense!"

" _Mmmmmm,_ do tell." Sanford hummed musingly, shouldering past and back into the outside of the crater trench, which sprawled like a great wound of earthen ruin around them.

"Well, you see, sir, there's just a time and place where true, red-blooded Americans are born! Pure and simple!" Hancock explained in a matter-of-fact tone as he followed. "You and me? We've got that look in our eyes, and that glint in our souls! Pressing forth into the world of Communist whores, Nazis, beasts and Jehovah's Witnesses! Slaying them all in the name of Democracy, apple pie, and liver-damaging alcoholic beverages!"

"You lost me." Sanford said, only half-paying-attention.

" _Damn it,_ and then you wonder _why_ we're so different, you and I!" Hancock contradicted. "I'm the only one with a sense of _purpose!_ I was built to liberate this shit-hole country and I won't stop until my task is done! _Death to feminists!_ "

"Stop talking." Sanford rolled his eyes, surveying the crater. After a moment of grumbling stillness from the robot, the scavenger pointed east, motioning to a stip of boulders. "See if any of those traveler parties left anything over there, would you?"

" _If there's something you gotta' get off your chest, chimp-boy, why don't ya' be a man about it and just say it~?_ "

"Go away, you're bothering me."

"You _got it,_ sir!" Hancock cheerily saluted with his buzzsaw, and flew off towards the aforementioned point. Sanford watched him go with an arduous expression of bafflement, and sighed through his vox.

 _Oh, Hancock, you sociopath._

The man was tempted to scratch at an itching irritation by his gut, rubbed his gauntlet absentmindedly across the plating of his suit's cuirass, and yawned audibly.

 _I wonder where Nyx is at._

The Deathclaw had always resorted to her more naturalistic ways during their outings. Whenever Sanford went on scavenging runs, and even when times of danger approached, Nyx's first reaction was always to become the solitary predator she knew how to be, breaking away from the pack, and scouting ahead.

Needless to say she was _good_ at it. For all her size, and even her weight and mirth, Nyx was as silent as a cat and as stealthy as one. He wondered how such a big, thorny reptile could hide so well.

 _She's had to do it for so long, I guess she's just mastered it._

As good an answer as he sought, Sanford didn't trouble himself with it as he followed the trench of the crater west. The clouds in the night sky weren't letting up, and now the moonlight he'd perceived earlier was completely gone. It made the high edges of the crater look like toothed mandibles that were closing in on either of his flanks, like he was standing on the tongue in some long-faced dragon's mouth.

 _I feel a bit underhanded,_ Sanford patted the rucksack on his leg. _Not enough haul for this outing. Too far from home, too dark, and too-_

-The scavenger's eyes flickered to a disturbance perceived not in the world before him, but on a tiny screen that was utilized by the internal systems of his helmet's Heads-Up-Display.

It was the scanner sheet for his suit's detection systems he had created. They were meant to use a combination of radar and electronic ping waves to pick up heartbeats and technological signatures in the surrounding proximity. He had Hancock's signature, friend-marked as a golden orb of yellow to his south, and he was even picking up Nyx's signature in that direction too.

But there was something else just ahead of him, and it was marked _crimson._

 _Unknown Robotic Signature –_ the suit read in a tiny bar of text when he blink-clicked on the dot on his tiny map.

Sanford mumbled under his breath.

 _Can't I ever leave the house and not get shot at?_

His gauntlets now not only wrapped around the two weapons he kept on his suit's hip magnet plates, they clasped and tugged them free, which he'd failed to do when they first got here.

Back then, everything had been serene, and a fight hadn't been brewing. It still may not have been, as it could've been anything from a suit glitch, to a robot that was already disabled and lying destroyed somewhere. Sanford wasn't taking any chances.

In one hand did he clasp the custom constructed Laser-Rifle pattern he'd designed and pieced together. The rechargeable double-faced battery hissed as it was secured into the gun's flank, and the diode spinners on its mouth rotated as carbon-based energies were harnessed and heated up inside.

In the other hand, crimson energy crackled to life whilst he thumbed the channeling rune on the hilt of his saber sword, the same he'd collected off a fallen Minuteman officer in the dreaded quarry tunnels of old.

A brief remembrance of the supernatural energies he'd encountered there made him shiver, even beneath the X-01. He still didn't quite understand what had killed those militiamen, and he doubted he ever would.

 _Least I'm putting it to good use._

Sanford held his weapons by his hips and trotted forwards, following the crater's ruined section towards the signature on his HUD.

 _Blink, Blink, Blink-_ it went, giving off tiny rings around it to symbolize its increasing proximity.

Sanford watched up ahead and saw a tumble of past activity. Here was his and his companions' ticket to getting out of the crater, as they always did in these runs. Most people couldn't do the far-falling jump he'd used to get down here so quick, like the travelers and immigrants who camped here sometimes. Luckily, the trench skid ended for a rather leveled ramp that opened into the woodlands on the side of the highway he and his group had been following.

The trees poked as a massive bushel of dead limbs off into the distance ahead. A burnt out pickup truck was angled against the shrinking and receding wall of the trench as it faded into flatland, and a few piles of rocks shielded an outcrop that he knew to exist.

 _That stupid little cave,_ Sanford thought as he knelt behind a boulder.

Just ahead was a little natural cavern that had been cored out when this crater had been made during the nukes two hundred years ago. He'd explored it before, he'd even killed Radroaches and other insectoid horrors inside on his prior journeys.

 _It's in there._

Sanford thumbed off the safety on his gun and moved off in a hurry, eager for any violence- if there was some to be had –to be over expediently. He wasn't in the mood for a fight tonight, probably the result of bad-air from so long away from adventuring.

 _I guess if I kill it, I can rip some hardrive parts out. I need those anyhow._

Sanford crossed some rough terrain, his heavy boots crunching in the quiet night air through gravel and stones. The land buckled in a slight raise, and a yawning stretch of blackness as tall as he was in the suit clawed from the earth like an uneven flesh wound.

The cave mouth was stout, and he'd still have to duck when he was heading inside. His night-vision filters cored out the blackness and eviscerated it, rendering the chamber within perfectly seeable and in clarity.

 _Who are you, I wonder?_

Sanford shouldered into the rim of the tunnel arch, his insectoid helmet snarling, and its yellow lenses gleaming in the dark. He peered round the earthy stone and perceived something lying on the ground several feet within.

Judging by the haphazard sprawl of the limbs, and the freshly rising steam from blackened blots pepperring its naked back, Sanford was confident in the hunch that this person wasn't just lying down to take a nap.

" _Hancock?_ " Sanford whispered into his suit's communications uplink, his eyes grimly remaining locked on the fallen man inside the cave lobby. "Come in, man."

" _Aye-aye, Cappytan', I got you!_ " –Came his robot's crackling voice. "- _Get this, someone left a whole endtable out here! And it's got- are you ready? –_ an underwear drawer! _Ha-haaa~! Whoever they are, they had good taste in bloomers!_ "

"Hancock, are you done?"

" _Perfectly, sir!_ "

"I found a body." Sanford looked at the cave's roof, and he checked his scan sheet constantly. "See if you can get Nyx and head over to that cave at the mouth of the trench. You know where that is?"

" _Up your mother's ass, of course!_ "

"You know where it is. Get over here." Sanford cut the link before his robot could chime in again.

 _What happened to you, friendo'?_

The spinning arms of his gun's barrel path-found into the cave firstly, and then the rest of the towering, armored scavenger followed. He was still cautious, even though the signature he was picking up was still farther away, and as he neared the body he could detect a terrible smell coming to him through the filters on his helmet's vents.

Snorting, Sanford processed the stench of burning flesh with an apprehensive grunt.

 _Laser fire._

He looked at the scan-sheet inside his helmet again. The signature was deeper into the cave, it seemed. He didn't know how that was possible, seeing as the cave was short, and it didn't tunnel that deep-

-A slight tumble of pebbles ahead erected his suspicions. Sanford aimed his rifle forwards as he stood over the corpse on the ground, lowering his blade so its crimson glow could bathe the cadaver in a slight, and blood-colored illumination.

Ritualistic scars and tattoo patterns marred emaciated limbs and exposed ribs. There was nothing but rags and an unkempt haircut to cover the man's unhealthy and gray skin. Even though he was ruined, and had been shot in the back with some carbon weapon, Sanford didn't need to examine him closely to see what he was.

 _Raider._

The scavenger pinched an eye at whatever was ahead of him, where the noise had come from. He used his boot to nudge the dead ganger over, wincing, as some of his burnt flesh squelched from the movements.

 _Messed up pretty bad, huh?_

The man's eyes were still open, locked in this wide expression of terror. His mouth was hanging limply, missing most of its teeth, and it was disturbing to see such lightlessness in his pupils, despite their exposure.

 _What is that?_

Sanford squinted at something on the ground. It had been hidden by the dead man's ribs, and now, that the body was slouched aside, it had been revealed.

 ** _Crrrunnnch-_** -went a patch of gravel up ahead. He definitively _knew_ that he wasn't alone in here with this laser victim.

Sanford looked at his scan-sheet, and the barrel of his gun spun faster as he put his finger on the trigger.

 _Wait a second._

The cave flashed crimson, and the searing, snickering report of a high-intense beam of carbon radiation simmered through the air with an angle towards his face.

Sanford instinctively crouched, his knee smacking into the dirt. A trio of flickering, blood-red trails of sun-energy whipped over his cranium, and dug brown divets into the cave wall behind him.

 _Son of a bitch._

The scavenger fired from the waist one-handed, his rifle kicking as an echoing, repeating cacophony answered the pot-shot with precise fury.

The gun sounded like a hundred hands clapping as the barrel spun at hurricane speeds, and red beams of concentrated power flickered into the back of the cave. Sanford couldn't see what he was shooting at. The signature was there, but physically, the air and the space here were bland. There was nothing but rocks and sweeps of earth.

 _Stealth-boy._

Sanford didn't give his opponent time to recover, and thus he didn't limit his firing to a single burst. He compressed the trigger and drained the battery's first face, sweeping his lane of fire west, and then east in a pair of darting movements.

There! In midair, as his bolts churned the earth of the cave's walls, some of them vanished in their travels, kicking sparks and a fat belch of fire.

Black smoke bucked outwards and metal shrieked, following by the resonant crackle of exposed circuitry meeting ruination.

The atmosphere seemingly rippled under the duress of a heat wave, and with a tumbling sense of defeat, a _body_ materialized out of nowhere and collapsed to the cave floor, blackened, with trails of wafting steam rising from it.

Sanford cut his auto-fire the moment he saw it, and he let his gun whine as its over-heating safeties kicked in.

 _Eat that, you piece of shit._

Sanford checked his scan-screen, his breathing controlled, and calm despite the heightened boiling in his bloodstream. The signature was gone. He'd gotten it. Whatever it was.

"… _you stay there,_ " Sanford mumbled to the Raider's corpse beside his knee as he switched the battery face on his gun, and stuck his blade to his hip. "- _I'll be right back…_ "

The suit whined in the quiet of the cave, its sounds meshing with electric crackles and whips of power from the newest corpse of whatever it was he had shot. Sanford reached the casualty and looked down at it with a pitting sensation developing in his gut.

The slender nature of the robot would've been made more prevalent if whoever had modified it had kept the olive drab original scheme. But nonetheless, though its chassis had been repainted black, and the curious modifications had changed its bodily shape, he still recognized it as the Assaultron it was.

 _What have we here…_ Sanford knelt and examined the destroyed machine. It was lying face-down, with black soot belching from a cluster of rents he'd shot through its chest and belly. The lasers had burst out its back, and had ruined a pack of reflective chrome that had been enwrapped in leather. He saw the buttons gridding the device's face and knew exactly what it was.

 _Stealthboy, older model. Now I've seen it all._

Sanford had encountered people using cloaking technology in the past, but he'd never seen it hard-wired into an Assaultron before. That combination seemed a lot deadlier than it initially sounded as, and he realized with a taste of chagrin that he'd been lucky.

 _Probably impatient,_ he reasoned, nudging the robot's head with his boot.

Emblazoned on the black paint, he saw, was a tiny symbol of some sorts that had been applied most likely through a spray-can sheet cutout, judging by the precision, and the run lines.

He saw that it was a pearl-white skull with a large, lower jaw, and daggered devil eyes. It was painted right on top of the Assaultron's cranium.

 _Whose symbol is that?_

Sanford had never seen it before. It wasn't Gunner, and it certainly didn't belong to any Raider or gang tribes here in Boston.

"- _Daw, hell~!_ "

Sanford whipped around, aiming briefly at Hancock before he lowered his gun. The Mr. Gutsy was levitating in the mouth of the cave, two ocu-lenses locked on Sanford, another on the Raider's corpse.

"Don't tell me you murdered people and didn't let me join in!" The robot snapped.

"Not me," Sanford breathed, standing upright and pointing down at the Assaultron. "talk to laser-happy here."

"Ah, just another case of robot-abuse turned violent." Hancock floated over beside the scavenger and looked down with disinterest at his fallen mechanical cousin. "You know what they say; displease the machine, displease the… _wait,_ fuck, I lost it."

"Found him," Sanford pointed at the dead Raider, shouldering around Hancock. "-he'd been shot full of holes. I picked up a robotics signature and followed it here. I guess that Assaultron was it."

"So it's just another random murder to match the thousands of other ones that happen out here!" Hancock rebuked, turning around and floating after him. "You sound all Sherlock-Holmes-y again, like this is some kind of complicated mystery! Just accept that we're badasses and these pussies have nothing to stop us with!"

"Look at this." Sanford picked up the item he'd seen lying on the ground earlier, the one that had been wedged under the Raider. "It's an audio disc." He said, turning the little reflective wafer in his fingers.

"-Oh _boo-hoo-hoo-!_ So, the pansy ass recorded a farewell for his shitbag wife and inbred child before he keeled over!" Hancock snapped. "He's a Raider! That means the only thing he's good for is target-practice or a place to piss on after he's dead."

"Well there's no harm in digging a little deeper, isn't there?" Sanford smirked, popping the disc into a small joint behind the collar of his suit. "Besides, this wasteland's full of mysteries."

"I thought you didn't want to get into an adventure." Hancock stared.

"I don't." Sanford looped through the audio commands. "Maybe it's nothing."

" _Or_ , maybe it's the first step onto the road of a long, drawn out shit-flinging contest between us and yet another group of douchebags out here!" The robot suggested hopefully. " _God_ I want it to be that so bad! Do you know how good it feels to literally make your enemies eat shit? Just to watch them cringe, and vomit and _die_ as the feces run down there-"

"I'm gonna' stop you there." Sanford cringed, still toying with the disc in his suit's options. "I swear, you can't go five seconds without saying something disgusting, can't you?"

" _Ha~! Nope!_ "

"The disc isn't playing." Sanford popped it out, and held it before himself in the faint glare of the cave from Hancock's thruster.

"Well isn't that just a shame, I don't get to hear tattoo-ass here whine for his mother." Hancock nudged the corpse with his buzzsaw thoughtfully. "But hey, here's a question right; what's just _one_ of these sleazebags doing all the way out here? Getting shot up by some hunter-killer robot?"

"I dunno'," Sanford shrugged, popping the disc into his rucksack's flap. "-the Assaultron had cloaking tech on it too. I didn't even see it until it shot at me."

" _Really._ ' Hancock muttered, still staring down at the body. Sanford didn't need to antagonize the robot to know. Hancock felt it too. They both did. These peculiar events were like the swansong of the wasteland. They happened, and things changed. Sanford just wasn't sure how or _when._

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-


	2. Chapter 2 - Deathclaw

**II**

 **Deathclaw**

* * *

They found Nyx ironically rummaging through the same thing that had preoccupied Hancock before he had arrived to help Sanford.

It was an old wooden endtable wedged in the soil and rocks, broken to high hell, and splintered, missing two of its ornate legs. How it had ended up out here was a mystery, but by far, it wasn't the craziest thing Sanford had seen out here. Those were a plethora of stories for another day, as always. Sometimes, Sanford wondered when that _other day_ would actually come.

" _Hey!_ Get out of my underwear drawer!" Hancock roared over the din of the night, his thruster screaming as he jetted past Sanford's flank. "Those underwear are for the war effort of Democratic Union!"

"As you say, _usiner._ ' Nyx ignored the robot in a tiny thrum. Her tail slowly swept behind her as she pawed carefully through the human-sized undergarments inside the table's drawers. In a complete demonstration of her delicate nature despite what she was; somehow, Nyx had worked the tiny little handles with her fingers and pulled them ajar. It was a miracle to say the least, and also a tad disturbing in regards to what the drawers were filled with.

" _Stupid, gecko!_ " Hancock snarled bobbing left and right behind the Deathclaw's large back, attempting to peer past her arms to see what she was doing. "-The ones with the hearts are _mine!_ "

" _Partez._ " She mumbled dismissively. The robot bounced in his flight path as her tail roughly batted him away with a metallic clap of scales to steel. "How often do I get to come across something so…. _personnel_ out here? It is vaguely intriguing."

"Underwear?" Sanford chuckled as he trotted closer, putting his weapons on his hip plates.

" _Oui._ " Nyx cast him a glance past her arm, her golden eyes brightening. "Is this not a world of mostly earth and ruin?"

"Yeah." He nodded.

"And I believe it was you whom I heard the philosophy of simple pleasures from." The Deathclaw's toothy chops raised in a smile. "The _usiner_ was right with one thing; whoever this individual was, they did have eccentric tastes."

" _The heart-underwear are minnneeeee~!_ " Hancock wailed.

" _Gah~! Prends-les et tais-toi!_ " Nyx pinched one of the articles inside the drawer and threw it at the robot with a dismissive swat. A second later, and a wide pair of white undergarments studded with red hearts flapped and adhered over Hancock's two ocu-lenses like a sheet.

"- _I'm blind~!_ " Hancock hollered, zipping left, and then right in the air rapidly. "- _Man down! Man down!_ "

"I think you made it worse." Sanford sighed, standing over her to peer into the drawer.

" _Que la paixde Dieu nous soit accordee…"_ The reptile's nostrils flared tiredly. She noticed Sanford staring and smiled at him sweetly. "Do you not wish for this? Somewhere? Deep down?"

"That was awfully Catholic of you to say." Sanford chuckled. "I thought you were an atheist."

"I do not share entirely _all_ of your beliefs." She stated without venom, but with honesty. Her long, horned head raised with intrigue. "Is that acceptable?"

"Of course it is."

"I heard gunfire." Nyx pinched another pair of underwear, raising it from the drawer as she stepped back on her cloven heels. "Molerats? Radroaches? Or some other form of rodent I assume?"

"No, actually, a fully armed, cloaked Assaultron assassin." Sanford smiled, as if he'd taken a sip of pleasantly minty tea. "It, uh, _missed_ by the way."

" _Excusez-moi?_ " The Deathclaw blinked, letting the clothing drape from her nails. It was pink, with ornate white laces forming vine-like décor up and down its girth. "Are you serious?"

"Dead serious, like the guy it shot before me." Sanford patted his rucksack when she raised her brows at him. "One dead Raider, one murderous robot, check and check. Raider had an audio file on him, I was gonna' bring it back to the station and try to fix it."

"This sounds like a fine predicament." Nyx cocked her head at the pink underwear in her fingers, harrumphed and tossed it across her shoulder; obviously intending to bring it back with her. "At least you stumbled upon someone _else_ suffering an assassination attempt for once, _mon cher._ "

"…Uhm, w-what are you doing with those?" Sanford pointed at her.

"Are we concerned of any further threats?" She ignored him, raising an eye-ridge at Hancock, who had managed to peel the underwear from himself, and was holding them out triumphantly with his grabber-claw, laughing. "And are you injured?"

"I don't think so, and no." The scavenger cleared his throat. "Another one for the books, otherwise."

" _Mm._ " Nyx hummed, and pointed down to one of her heels. "My contribution." She said, indicating a small pile of bits she'd scrounged up, glistening in the glare of Hancock's thruster.

"Good eyes." Sanford complimented with a laugh, stepping around the reptile's flank. "Is that a gun?"

"A… _11-millimeter_ _?_ " She tried, her tail following slowly behind her as she followed his movements.

" _10,_ " He corrected, stuffing the batteries, cells, and copper into his rucksack. He picked the little sidearm up, letting it rotate with the speed of a saw drill as he swung the trigger-ring over his index finger. "I haven't fired one of these in ages." _Click~!_ –went the gun as he caught it in a firm grip. It looked comically small, like a little children's toy in the bulky fist of his suit. "I could use the parts."

"Sanford?" The Deathclaw intoned, a heavy hiss rattling through her chops.

"Where would I be if you weren't here to give me new toys?" Sanford chuckled. The man stood up, shoving the gun with the rest of their finds into the carry bag. He faced her, smiling under the snarl of his war-helm.

"Lost and _seul?_ " The Deathclaw chortled.

" _Hey,_ " Sanford's arm swung out, aiming for behind and below her hip. A swift clap of metal fingers to scales saw Nyx hop forwards with a delighted hiss. "don't be so sure. I'm _brave_ remember?"

" _Foul petit homme…_ " Nyx grinned.

 ** _Bang~!_** –went a terrible report of metal in the night. Sanford and Nyx turned around and looked at Hancock.

"- _Whoops!_ Burst a sprocket!" The robot tisked, his ocu-lenses struggling to perceive a faint, trickling stream of black liquid leaking onto the ground from some loose bolt on his chassis.

"Aw, Han', not again…" Sanford grumbled.

" _Lookout!_ I can't control its directory!" Hancock laughed. He jolted forwards, causing Sanford to curse and dance back to avoid the flailing stream of loose oil droplets. "Talk about a piss-shit day, huh? _Ha-haaa~!_ "

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

Though the night air was touched and pregnant with familiarity to him, no amount of recognition could bestow into Sanford a feeling of utmost confidence.

He had learned in the hardest ways that the dark of the Commonwealth hid terrible things within its shadowy blankets, things that broiled with hatred, and most of all _hunger._

Even with his knowledge of the land, his night-vision, and the mutually assured alliance between he and his friends, Sanford could still not bring himself to remove his own psyche from the jaws of stoic consensus.

"Are you well?" –Came a tiny murr from the man's flank, and a second later, a powerful, scaly claw brushed with a sensuous touch past his metal shoulder.

"Well as Spring Rain." Sanford snickered back, shielding his concrete features under a veil of expertly timed loftiness. He was thankful sometimes for the helmet; it acted as a buffer, and there were moments where it was perfect at hiding things.

But Nyx didn't seem so convinced either way, and that was usually the case with her. Normally, she rendered his usual tricks obsolete, and Sanford had always been forced to turn to more creative options to hide the waves of trauma.

He'd suck her into a casual conversation, or he'd attempt to playfully install a complex into her mood, saying things like:

" _Gee',_ look at that scuff on your left horn."

Or:

"It doesn't look like you polished your coat today. I like it when you do that."

- _That_ was usually enough to fluster her and send her off on her own grooming errands. When in doubt, resulting to her physique was a sure way to ward off her concerns. He realized that Nyx was just trying to help, but at the end of the day, the only way Sanford ever felt better during these episodes was when people left him alone.

Hancock knew that. He'd known that for almost a decade and a half. Whenever the horrors started to creep back into the recesses of his brain, Sanford would twist up, become silent and allow edges of rime and chill to block off his ears and eyes. Hancock never tried to assuage that. He always accepted it for what it was, like an average soldier was trained to do. To follow orders, to see the world as such; a division between _them_ , and ones' self.

That was the buffer between Nyx and Hancock, and probably why their bullishly contrasting attitudes inevitably saw them butting heads all the time.

Hancock possessed experience that she didn't, and likewise. Sometimes, Sanford wondered just how the world had seen them all flung together.

But nights like this would come, and where Hancock would drift away from the ice crusting over his skin, Nyx would attempt to thaw it, and remind him of the home he'd been gifted.

"Sanford?" She asked again, touching him, brushing his suit, longing for the steel to peel away so she could indulge herself in the fleshy contents beneath it.

Trapped in this moment of sharp apprehension, as memories wound themselves crisply and with the intent to draw blood in his soul, Sanford trotted down the Bostonian road of dusk and glanced at his Deathclaw with a hazy, almost intoxicated eye.

A lot had changed since the age in the past, when it had just been _two_ and not _three._ There were so many divisions between him and her that had existed for the longest of times, and only through long, and, sometimes _grueling_ patterns of trial, error, and adaptation had they overcome them together.

Sanford had met Nyx on a whim of bad- or perhaps _good_ –luck during a terrible firefight with the mysterious _Enclave_ ; the terrible military political power of the East Coast's darker side of things. They had tracked Nyx across the ruins of New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania after wiping out her tribe. Through sheer guile, endurance, and the sustaining of one of the toughest hearts he'd ever seen, had Nyx bested the impossible and survived long enough to find him and Hancock.

Though the two had initially greeted one another with attempts on each other's lives (which, some days Sanford still regretted) –much had changed, and their minds had been… _bonded_ in a sense.

 _I'm not giving it enough credit, I suppose._

Sanford sighed through the vox grills of his helmet, and he let his eyes wander down the scaly, sleek and femininely highlighted form of the reptile.

The way Nyx's hips rolled with her casual, yet predatory trot was an enigma of intrigue and piqued curiosity for him. He had fond memories of those hips, ones that were like droplets of honey to discourage and disrupt the commonality of sour venom that was eating away at him.

Her body had been so alien and yet so endearing. In fact, over a decade of having nothing but a ranting, angry robot for company had effectively rendered Sanford addicted to her inner self after but a mere taste.

The taboo and sexual revolution had permanently impacted him in a way only poorer experiences in the past had done. It had taken some adjusting, but soon Sanford had come to live with it, and even be grateful for it.

Some of the clouds overhead were clearing up, and right on target with his coming intentions did Earth's mournful moon show its lonely face, as it stared down at the dying planet with gray idleness, and shined silver through the night.

The Deathclaw hummed at it. Sanford was made to smile. It was her artistic spirit, coming to life from such a source of inspiration.

Nyx was as gruff and tough as they came, and she sported the attitude of someone who had touched evil, and had been worsened for it, but all the wiser.

It was astounding how through all that suffering, she still spearheaded her life with this sense of almost playful curiosity. Her endurance was inspiring, and, to a certain degree; arousing.

Sanford made sure Hancock was too preoccupied with the new pair of heart-patterned bloomers he'd looted from the crater, before he inched closer and played with his Deathclaw.

"- _Sanford~…._ " Nyx's vocals were unlike anything she offered outside of his company, as such, normally in much more private scenarios. It was a honeyed gasp, pure and virulent, and Sanford hadn't even tried that hard.

 _It's the suit,_ he smirked, wiggling his fingers, watching with satisfaction as the larger, powerful reptile squirmed, clenching her thighs, whipping her tail, teetering him in his path as she leaned into him. _Adds just a tint of domination to the thing. I should wear it more often._

With an almost bestial grunt, the scavenger parted from her as quick as he had accosted her. His armored arm slipped with a hiss of steel and scale from between her legs, idling momentarily behind his hip as he glanced at Hancock.

"Sir, I must say, this is the greatest find I've made yet!" The Mr. Gutsy announced with pride, holding aloft his flapping, hearted prize in his claw. "I've got big plans for it!"

 _Oblivious. Good._

"-And those, I can't wait to see." Sanford chuckled, dusting his hand off with a few metallic swats against his greave. He glanced at Nyx, grinning boastfully under his helmet.

For her part, the Deathclaw looked drunk. She was still touching him, hanging all over him like an unsteady leg amputee.

"- _How eager of you…_ " Nyx panted, her golden eyes widening with this snapping realization. All at once, the Deathclaw harrumphed, and with a snake's hiss; shoved off of him and reaffirmed her trot by his side. "Do not merely _glance me_ like that."

"That's just for the road," Sanford shrugged with musing. "-haven't you ever seen a rabbit trap? You lay bits and tiny bits of carrots until they reach the box with the stick, and then…"

"You pull the stick, trap the rabbit _le tenir pendant que tu le colles dans le cul?_ " Nyx purred.

"I-If the rabbit wants me to." The scavenger stammered, trying and failing to shield himself with a laugh.

"I don't know what just happened, but it's enough to make me _puke!_ So it's a good thing I don't have a mouth!" Hancock snapped, letting the underwear flap in the breeze from his claw, like it was some makeshift flag. "Ya' know, I can _smell_ these things-a-brewing! You two have no subtlety whatsoever!"

"Says the talking Easy-Bake-Oven who screams everywhere he goes." Sanford rolled his eyes, making Nyx chuckle deeply. "Maybe I will build you that doomsday robot just to shut you up."

"I don't care _what_ your reasoning is, just so long as it makes you do the Democratically sound thing!" Hancock pressed. "Do you even understand how many Communists we could kill every day with some _Big-Bertha-Bot_ running around and stepping on their mothers' gizzards? It'd be beast!"

"Dope?"

" _Yes! Dope! Ha-haaa~!_ You've taught me yet another wonderous word, San-of-the-Ford! Or should I say: _San-of-the-_ Word? _Ha~!_ "

" _Ugh,_ " Nyx cupped a claw over her snout, as if she felt ill. "you're repulsive."

"Not as repulsive as your _face,_ you overgrown skink!" The robot roared.

" _There it is._ " Sanford grinned between them, his helm raising.

" _What?_ The truth that I speak? Tell me about it! This _thing_ next to you deserves to be turned into a purse, and you just can't see it!" Hancock ranted.

"One cannot see what only the sociopathic perceive." Nyx sighed.

"I want you- _to grab a large rock, and shove it down your throat~!_ " The robot screamed.

" _Han'!_ " Sanford snapped.

" _What~!_ "

"We're home."

Like a sprawl of light in the sea of dark, rolling hills, there was an outpost that spawned itself presently at the head of the winding road, topped with fluorescent beams of illuminating, and the rotating glints of moving metal.

The barricades shielded most of the technological prowess that Sanford had demonstrated through years of scavenging and robotics toiling, but weren't dominating enough to entirely mask it.

Proudly, the Red-Rocket-Station may have once been a simple commercial outlet meant for the refueling of family sedans passing in and out of Sanford's old development, but now it was an armored, mean and automated powerhouse with which he had based himself in for almost fourteen years.

The entrenchment was palpable. Atop the all-round ten foot wall of bolted scrap, wood and aluminum were slowly rotating, quivering and growling weapons. _Auto-turrets,_ each one of them unique and different in their constructions. They boasted rifles, carbines, shotguns and auto-pistols, mounted in mechanically clasped trenches that were fed ammo drums, belts and boxes.

Little green lights blinked on top of each setup to symbolize their functionality, and inside Sanford's suit, as they neared the tiny outpost, his HUD gave off a positive little chime just beneath his chin as his portable beacon synchronized with the scanners inside the station. The turrets recognized them as friendly, rendering them safe from their wrath, which the scavenger knew was withering. Some enemies who had gotten too close to home- literally –had paid that price in the past.

" _Ah,_ there's the Liberty-H.Q!" Hancock sighed, floating past and ahead of Sanford's flank, letting the white light from the station's many spot-lanterns gleam like silver off his chassis' rims. "The pit-stop for the convoys on their way to Normandy! We should rename this place from Red-Rocket to Red- _Ball,_ eh?"

"Tell you what," Sanford grinned. "you find me the big light-up letters for the sign, and I'll build it for ya'."

" _That's_ a deal not worth refusing!" The robot laughed. " _Clarice,_ we're home!"

"I assume, that after what I call an _invitation,_ " Nyx's inhuman voice growled in Sanford's hearing. "-you do not have plans this evening otherwise?"

"I just have to do _one thing_ first," Sanford tapped his rucksack. "the disc? Let me toy with it."

"Do it _quickly._ " The Deathclaw huffed, steam practically blowing from her nostrils. "It has been too long, _mon cher._ "

"I know." The scavenger sighed, trotting with his long time team that he had conquered the world with. "I know."

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

"- _Greetings out there, Wasteland-Scummers, it is the late break, 12:36 A-M, the Witching Hour, in case you didn't know. You're listening to Black Diamond Radio, your nighttime broadcast station on the clock, with Sydney Bright, in the flesh._ "

The radio's ambiance was a charged air of static harmony that quietly resonated inside the garage workshop, and added just the flavor of ambiance he needed to work.

Sealed from the world and locked in his own personal haven of isolation; Sanford's first deal of business before anything else, was to enjoy a moment of silence.

Breath bled from him like poison from a wound, sluggish and promptly chilled upon the air that it touched. Though it had been diminished, the scavenger could still pry into his own mind and feel the grasping tendrils of what it was that was striking him.

He'd never known what to call it. He'd always used terms such as- ' _The Trauma'_ –or- ' _Bad Memories'_ –but he knew acutely its true identity, he merely worked towards shielding it in this pathetic veil of solitude.

 _Concentrate._

Sanford Tobs opened his eyes, finished breathing, and stared at his own face. Weakly, at first, was this link made in the gloom of the garage and in the murmur of the low-volume radio.

Sanford was glaring with his face of flesh, scrutinizing his face of metal, because he did possess them both, where one could be removed, and the other hidden.

Reinforced steel hooks snagged the mounting loops on the X-01's pauldrons. Composite bases studded with steadying plates and bands were clamped tightly over its mighty boots, and the exoskeletal frame of the mounting station barred access from the flanks readily with sweeping pylons of rusty yellow and reflective chrome.

Steadied, and suspended like a legged armored vehicle, the X-01- from the outside –could be perceived as positively massive. It stood nearly two heads taller than him, and was three times as wide. Its reinforced breast was laden with pipes, wires and bulkhead stabilizers that possessed an almost artistic curvaceousness to them. Looking at it from the outside, could Sanford's inner-mechanic appreciate the audacity of what the United States Military had accomplished. The X-01 was by definition the pinnacle of pre-war exoskeletal technology. It was almost ironic that such a potent national weapon was being used by some random guy to collect parcels of trash.

 _It's good for the soul,_ the scavenger mused, letting his eyes wander up and down the suit's sweeping, metal hide. _Better than what I've been doing._

The suit itself was like reading a book, or perhaps a memoir document. The past and his own personal history were literally written upon the synthetic plating, not in words surely, but in the form of marks, damage and warps.

 _There,_ on the left arm; the light divet that he'd never been fully able to smooth out from where a rocket had literally glanced him, bounced off, and detonated at his flank.

On the knee pads, where a slight snow-flake like speckle was still prevalent to closely examining eyes. More damage his limited access to tools hadn't been able to fully mend. A grenade cluster had gone off while he'd been in a crouch. Even protected by the suit's helmet, Sanford had still been blinded for nearly an hour afterward.

Just thinking about the old times made his head hurt. Every bruise, knick, cut and bullet grazing was a memory waiting to be touched and relived. Sanford could glance at every bit of notable scarring and wince with each example.

He'd been through quite a lot, it was probably why the trauma episodes happened randomly and he'd lock up like a prison cell door.

 _Need something to take my mind off of it._

Up until now, that had been what he was doing. His rucksack looked like a deflated air-balloon on the workbench nearby, emptied, with all the bits he and his companions had scrounged up distributed among a vast array of storage drawers and slip-boxes.

Being outside the armor, these basic tasks were almost lofty to him. Everything felt lighter, and he didn't know how else to describe that. It was like he was walking on clouds, and he realized that he was so used to the heavy trod of his suit, that he was more familiar to daily action with it on and not _off._

Was that normal?

 _Maybe for me, it is._

Sanford snickered as he stepped away from the suit, where it continued to hunch over in bulky, insectoid darkness, staring at him with this baseless glare.

 _I wonder how spiders feel when they shed their skin._

The man sifted the sack over, his mind weakly brushing against the proverbial fingertips of whatever Sydney Bright- Diamond's nighttime radio broadcaster –was saying from the little glowing box on the nearby table.

 _Now about this disc._

The thing looked like a chrome communion wafer, reflecting the white light shining through the garage space in the form of a slender dagger up and down its length. It was marred with a slight brushing of soil, and dust, and some scratches were present on the sides.

 _Probably just needs a cleaning._

-Though some of the older audio devices out here were much harder to work with, they were notoriously easier to fix. Discs were more modern, but they were also more fragile. Sometimes, all it took was an errant scrape or a misdirected smudge for the entirety of its contents to be blown to hell.

Sanford was keen on unlocking whatever secrets- if any –that existed in this specimen. He never took death lightly, as evidenced by the daily mental torture he suffered.

So what if it was a Raider? There was a mystery here, and he was curious about it.

After all, that Raider had to have done something pretty bad to warrant a fully armed, cloaked and customized Assaultron assassin tracking him down and liquidating him.

Bringing himself to think on the incident as he bustled around the garage, gathering a rag, a sterilization solution and a precision laser stylus; the whole thing was pretty screwed up.

He had an entire state to wander in. New England was- for a single man –pretty damn big. What were the odds that right as this murder had occurred he had blundered into its immediate aftermath? The whole thing seemed… _staged,_ maybe even planned, which, given the madness that gripped the world, it just might have been.

What secrets had that man divulged into this disc before his death? If any? Was it even his? Or had it been planted?

And what of that symbol on the Assaultron's cranium? Sanford didn't recognize it. A white scrap-skull? It wasn't a Raider tribe, it wasn't Gunner, and it wasn't Brotherhood or Enclave. It was strange. It couldn't have been a lowly gang. What gang possessed the technology or resources to send out a designated hitman like _that?_

The precision laser stylus highlighted Sanford's face crimson at the rimes as he worked its glowing head down the silvery, faint scuffs on the disc's face. A quick, craftsman's puff from his lips cleared any seared debris, and he went to work dabbling some of the sterilization solution.

 _All just a pattern. First the stylus, clearing up the nastiest damage, then the solution, then the rag, and…_

Sanford swiveled the cloth a few more times, and held aloft the disc into the glare of the ceiling fixtures of the garage. He smiled warmly as the wafer glinted back at him, almost winking in due with his success.

 _Like brand new._

"- _and that's why the Downtown Metro-Tunnel is a no-go for you play-it-safers. Recent reports say its overwhelmed with those nasty Rad-scorpions. Eye-witnesses? None left! Diamond guard say all that was left was an_ arm! _Believe that, Scummers? That's what you get for being Raider-bait._ "

 _People think that's funny?_ Sanford quirked his lips with distaste, his thumb now orbiting over the dial on the radio's chin.

" _Now if that wasn't enough, get this, puppies; The Helios Shopping Center,_ "

 _Helios Shopping Center?_

Sanford had just been preparing to turn the thing off so he could try his new disc, but Sydney Bright's piqued speech prevented him from so easily banishing her from the waves of his reception.

" _That's right, that raggedy-ass old mall uptown from Diamond, I'm sure plenty of you know it. The place our great, great, great grandparents bought their crocs and hair-rollers._ "

 _Get on with it, lady._

" _All kinds of weird reports flooding in from that place, you hear? Diamond guard are saying it too. There are lights, there's screaming, there's gunfire. Stay. Away. Kitties._ "

 _Helios…_

Sanford thumbed the station off and popped the radio box's disc-chin, though he failed to utilize the mounting in the first few seconds as he doted on what had been said.

 _I remember Helios from when I was a kid._

Helios had been one of the biggest 'New-Tech' –shopping centers in Boston for a long time. His father had taken him there on multiple occasions, ironically, sometimes stopping for gas at this very station, the one that Sanford had turned into his headquarters and new home.

 _Some maniac's probably set up shop there, or several maniacs._

Sanford popped the disc into the tray and eased it shut. He glanced at his suit, standing there, like a titan of still shadow in the garage's flank. He watched it, listening to the radio box hum as it processed the disc.

 _Maybe I should go clear it out._ Sanford shook his head. _One problem at a time._

The radio box practically growled at him, causing the scavenger to raise a brow in concerned demeanor. There was a slight crackle of static, and a single loop of audio, nothing but a flickering sound.

"…God _damn._ " Sanford whistled. That disc was more messed up than he'd taken it for, he supposed. He was just about to pop the tray again, but right as his thumb was over the sigil, the door brokering the garage from the station kiosk creaked open, and something large slipped into the room.

Sanford had been standing this whole time, but genuinely, even with the experience under his belt; he had to admit that he had been startled.

He wasn't armed, but his hand still whipped to his hip on instinct, fingers clenching like spider's limbs for a gun holster that wasn't there.

" _Vous semblez avoir vu un fantome,_ Sanford." Nyx blinked, her golden eyes stabbing through the shadows, the white light of the garage playing like bands of platinum off her dark, scaly hide. "Are you well?"

"No ghost." Sanford shook his head quickly, shivering as he decapitated his pose, and leaned a hand tiredly on the workbench. "-No ghost, or… or anything like that, you just… _startled me._ "

Nyx resembled a scene right out of a storybook of old, her draconic head, her big horns and her shoulders were poking through the human-sized doorframe, twisted in his direction. It was readily evident that the Deathclaw didn't know how to respond to him. She merely hummed at him plainly, offering this tentative little sound of disinterest.

She shoved through the archway a second later, her scales sliding loudly against the wood, and her spinal fins bending as she worked them through the arch's top.

Like a cartoon character, she practically popped out of the frame, wiggling her hide like a dog would fresh out of water.

" _De tout beaute…_ " Nyx chuckled, her tail whipping and shutting the door behind her. "I can navigate this home of yours almost like a person these days, _non?_ "

Sanford's breath to speak was stilled in a pause.

"-But… But you _are_ a person, why would you-" He shook his head. "It's _your_ home too, and you're just as much a person as me, and even _Hancock,_ which I know is hard to process."

"The latter? _Indeed._ " Nyx's talons were capable of rending solid steel, and yet they seemed no less fierce than a cat's set of paws as they kneaded them on a scratching board. The talons gave off a slight hiss as she scratched an itch on her scaly belly, her snake tongue slapped over her nose, and for just a second was Sanford re-educated about the contents of the reptile's mouth.

She yawned in a tiny, hissing entrance, her jaws splaying widely, revealing the rows of dinosaur teeth armoring down her mandible and upper jaw.

 _Clap~!_ –went her chops as the display of boredom terminated. She licked her nose again and stared at him, ignoring the Power Armor stacked right beside her.

"You have been in here for hours." She said.

"Yeah, I know." Sanford nodded, scratching the back of his head. "I just wanted to clean the disc off, and I'm having, well…"

"Mm?"

"-limited success?"

"Mm." Nyx's sigh was a sound that resembled an alligator blowing river-water from its nostrils. It was this ragged thing to be beheld in light of ambiance, something familiar to him and purely inhuman. Sanford's thoughts wandered to the road from earlier tonight. "Do you not suffer from loneliness in here?"

" _Actually-_ " Sanford stopped himself. He almost delved into detail about how the garage was an escape for him, but decided against it. "- _No._ It's nice to have a moment of quiet every now and again. Like when you read all those books I scavenge for you?"

"That is true, but you dabble in _metal,_ " The reptile observed, now looking at the dormant beast that was his X-01 suit in its rack. "I dabble in the written word. … _Hmph_."

One of her golden eyes craned to him.

"Do you remember when I needed assistance in reading your language?" She asked him.

"… _Yeah._ " Sanford bowed his head as he laughed, smiling warmly at the old memories when they had first met. "I could teach you to read English easy, but it was the French, and the German and…"

"We did not make do?"

"Of course we did! That's the brilliance of it, you know?" He nodded happily. "Not that a good problem with or without my help has ever stopped you."

"Mm."

"Yeah."

Nyx's chops curled into a cheeky- almost venomous –smile. With a girlish whisk of her wrist, the Deathclaw rotated her claw, and gestured to the air itself.

" _Monsieur?_ Do you smell that?" She quizzed, her tail whipping behind her like an armored, thick serpent.

Sanford blinked, and he suddenly found himself more drawn to the slight crackle murmuring out from the speakers of his radio. To be honest, up until recently, he had forgotten about the road.

 _Should I tell her I just did that to take my mind off of things?_

 _Not unless you want her to kill you._

 _She wouldn't do that! She… well…._

-Now, he wasn't so certain. Nyx had that predatory glint in her eyes, that light that resembled burning reserves of radiation. The spicy aroma he knew all too well from her was so thick in the air right now that someone could've shit on the floor and the resultant smell still wouldn't have beaten through all of it.

"Is this work as pressing as you are making it out to be?" The Deathclaw rumbled, and Sanford could feel the heightening tension in the room as her bladed, raptor-like feet took her across the distance between them. Nyx's expression was odd. It was like she was trying to smile, but at the same time, she was fighting against a different kind of expression.

"It's pressing for _me._ " Sanford admitted, stepping away from the tool bench, and suddenly forgetting all about the humming radio and the mysterious disc inside of it. "…I mean, someone did shoot at me over it."

"Sanford," Nyx hissed. " _Je ne viens pas de vous rejoindre sur un coup de tete; Je me suis donne a toi._ "

"I realize that." The scavenger nodded. Large fingers tightly gripped over his shoulders, and he could hear her flesh sliding as the talons adorning them slipped deeply into their sheaths and away from him.

"Can it not wait?" Her facial scales were smooth things, slimy and slippery, though they excreted no such offerings and were entirely dry. Touching her was like touching a snake, a tall, humanoid snake with big arms. Her horns shielded much of his flanks from his eyes, even the radio and the workbench he'd been positioned at earlier. It was purposefully done. Nyx wanted attention.

"I guess you could say I have the magic-touch, huh?" Sanford grinned, making the reptile hiss as his hands found purchase on her hips. He wound them down until the palms were grazing sections of more interior flesh, where things were softer and less armored. "Did I do this?" He joked.

"I _want_ to." Nyx shivered, jamming her snout into his face. The quickest grace of her serpentine tongue wetly running across his chin and his lips sparked a fire in Sanford's hips. Though the flame had been tempered earlier, and certainly had been growing from ember to flicker throughout this encounter, now with the question of sensuous attire coming into play, the scavenger was rendered helpless.

" _Slow down._ " He grunted, wrenching his lips free of a pursed lock from her chops. Nyx snorted at him, and his back arched painfully as a large palm shoved him into her chest, bending him and threatening to break him in half. " _Don't you do it._ "

She didn't listen to him. Linen ripped, and his pants bundled in a mangled heap about his socked feet. The scavenger grumbled in agitation as he was accosted. He always felt too small for the exchanges in the opening stages as Nyx devolved into more animalistic urges of claim and submission.

" _Damn it,_ girl." Sanford mumbled, his words muffled as he reached up and bit tenderly into the scales shielding her scaly carotid. "Is that all I am? Some _plaything, huh?_ "

"You are a plaything when you're in that suit," Nyx whined. The floor of the garage thundered as she teetered back, and landed on her rump, taking him with her. "-outside of it; _tu es mon male, Sanford~…_ "

" _Male?_ " He pronounced, gripping the insides of the reptile's thighs as he knelt on the concrete. "- _Male_ or _homme?_ "

"Semantics." Nyx squeezed her eyes shut, her fangs glistening in the light of the fixtures around the chamber. Between Sanford's legs, as he yanked his boxers off, the tip of her inquisitive tail looped around, and flicked them out of his fingers, but not before brushing in a quick cop along his backside. "Get on with it."

"I _am, I am,_ keep your ovaries on…" The scavenger chided. He slipped his wrists under her thorny hips, and with a grunt of effort did he lift her tailbone off the floor. "-God _damn_ , you're heavy…"

"That had best not be a _fat-joke._ " The Deathclaw snarled in delight, her talons removing themselves from their sheaths against her will, and leaving marks in the floor. "I am forced to deal with the _usiner's_ comments too much to begin hearing them from you too…"

"I'd never call you fat." Sanford lowered himself more, until almost all of his arms were curling like hooks around the underside of her sumptuous, scale-rippled thighs. "I'd never call you anything, actually, you know, except… _beautiful._ "

" _Ugh~,_ " Nyx rolled her eyes, craning her head back as she let him hike her wide hips in the air. "-how _cheesy._ "

"Fine," Sanford craned his neck down, lining his lips up with the vertical symmetry of her tummy, until that invisible line culminated. There was a soft, wet report as he flexed his jaw. The Deathclaw's talons dragged noisily into the stone, and a pained trill bubbled up from her throat and towards the ceiling.

"-you're not beautiful," Sanford nudged his chin over one of her hip and spat on the floor. "you're fuckin' hot."

"Is it merely my misconception, or have you become creative with all of this?" The Deathclaw breathed, shyly looking at him over the sweep of her breast.

"Is that a complaint?"

" _Non, jamais…_ " She moaned. "-you will never hear a complaint from me about this, Sanford."

"Well ain't _that_ reassuring…" Sanford hooked onto her hips, and moments later, as his skin pressed into her hide, Nyx's following breath was dimmed under the scraping of her claws rending divets in the concrete. "- _alright,_ " Sanford grit his teeth, teetering on his knees. "- _menu's up;_ what do you want, huh?"

" _Rapide,_ this time…" Nyx quivered, struggling to hold a decent expression.

"- _wait,_ shit, I don't know that one-"

" _Fast._ It means _fast._ " She snarled.

"You got it."

" _…_ _Oui~…_ " Nyx moaned, rocking lightly into the floor, her legs wiggling under their own weights. The Deathclaw parted her jaws, hung her head back, and let her saliva drip between her teeth and her tongue. "… _I have it~…_ " –She drooled.

" _So,_ " Sanford held onto her, trying to speak between the rhythm of his hips. "-that _disc…_ "

"- _O-Oh-Oh… t-the-d-disc… o-o-oui'…_ " She trailed drunkenly, her speech bucking with each one of his contacts.

"…I think I'm close, you know?"

" _-Y-You bett-er-_ not – _be – al-ready…!_ "

" _No._ Not like _that,_ I mean to fixing the thing."

" _-O-Oh-Oh… I-I se-e…._ "

"I just wonder what it has on it. Like, what did that guy have to say?" Sanford shook his head, his face turning crimson as he worked. "- _Shit._ "

" _…_ _per-haps it has... n-nothing… on it…_ "

"Hancock seems to think so. But I don't know." He grunted. "There was this symbol on the Assaultron I've never seen before. It has me worried, what if-"

" _M-Mon-s-sieur-?_ "

"Yep?"

" _F-Faster._ "

"Yeah."

The room echoed with a heavier whisper of hips in their impactful meeting. Nyx craned her head forwards, hung over her belly, and hissed at him, letting her mouth drip freely, and her tongue lap.

"-what if there's another _threat?_ " Sanford was almost oblivious even as he labored inside her, his eyes lowered, and they focused on the rather messy linkage between their bodies. "-I-I just…"

" _Sanford~._ " Nyx cried, and a heavy, leathery palm clapped behind and between his shoulder blades. "- _Shut up, and come here, you dumb ape~…_ "

Nyx snapped the tip of her snout over his mouth, letting him flex his lower mandible as to gain access to the insides of her oral cavity. Her larger tongue dominated his in a terribly vulgar display of laps and twists and bends.

Sanford breathed until his heaves became touched by vocal volume, devolving into periodic grunts, all the more deafened by her droning, muffled cries.

There was a concoction brewing just south, something that could be perceived as foul to outside parties but pleasantly stewing to those participating. Needless to say, did this detritus empty both of them and onto the other. It affected Nyx much more plainly, seeing as her body by gender's definition was on the receiving end.

The reptile rumbled and hissed as the ending sways terminated their strange and taboo union. A physical sensation flowed like a river of molasses down the base of her tail, its initial heat cooled and defeated by exposure to the air.

" _Bordel de merde…_ " Nyx rasped after a moment of pause. Like a predatory cat would cast its paws to the ground, she let her palms slap heavily back to the floor, they angled her arms and daggered her collar, letting her lean back and breathe at the ceiling. " _J'aime ce qu'on ressent quand tu me baises…_ "

He understood enough of that last bit to blush.

" _Nyx._ " He chuckled.

"…Oh, _so much_ better…" The Deathclaw licked him on the lips. "You will be pleased to know that I am placated."

"Don't get my worries up or anything."

" _Oui._ You may un-mount me now." Sanford laughed as she shoved him roughly off of her belly. Her tail curled beneath her hips, and the reptile flexed her bladed toes into the floor as she stewed in a brief twilight of her scratched libido. "I hope I have not distracted you too much…" She giggled sarcastically.

"Not enough, I guess." Sanford sat on the floor across from her, putting his chin on his knee. "I needed that."

"How fortunate of this wasteland to bring us together then." Nyx's arms shivered as she stretched them outwards, her talons wiggling in and out of their sheathes as her fingers splayed. "I take it that you wish to pursue this matter further?"

"What matter?" Sanford raised a brow as she placed one of her bladed feet in his lap. The Deathclaw licked her nose and nodded to the radio on the other side of the room. Sanford massaged her foot's bridge with his thumbs and followed her gaze. " _Oh yeah._ "

"Describe this incident to me once more." Nyx blinked, sighing as she rode down the final waves of euphoric aftermath. "You discovered a corpse and were attacked."

"There was some dead scumbag on the ground, a _Raider,_ " Sanford nodded, switching his attentions to the upper ball of her extremity. "he'd been shot by this cloaking Assaultron, that summarily tried to shoot _me._ I took it out, found that symbol on its head, and the audio disc on the guy."

"Is there anything else?"

"People are talking about Helios Shopping Center, one of the old malls in the city." Sanford said. "I remember it because my father used to take me there on outings when I was little."

"How fairs your father, _mon cher?_ " She asked lowly, and with caution.

"Don't know." He shrugged, melding the leathery, plush flesh of her toes in his fingers. "Don't care either. You need a manicure, girl."

"A what?"

"A manicure, it's like a beautifying of one's feet, particularly women." The scavenger ran his thumb down the hook claw sticking out from her inner big toe. It was almost as big as his head. "Though, I don't know, envisioning someone trying to paint these bad-boys…"

" _Paint?_ " Nyx's toes twitched in his grip, she peered at him curiously. "I do not think that is a productive idea."

"You never know, right?" Sanford chuckled. "…Helios Shopping Center… There's something wrong happening."

"As always in this forsaken place." The Deathclaw sighed. "When do we start pursuing the matter and how?"

"You know me like the back of your claw, don't you?"

" _Oui._ " She took her foot from his hands and slipped the other one into its place. "The other one too."

"Yes ma'am." The scavenger grinned, shielding the sudden touch of uncertainty stabbing into his breast.

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-


	3. Chapter 3 - Memories

**III**

 **Memories**

* * *

" _-you don't understand what it was like! Water drips, cold air and that burn in the back of your throat. God, it felt like they were making us drink motor oil mixed with our own distilled piss._

 _That was how it went for days, and days, and days on top of those. There wasn't anything except the concrete, that stuff they made us drink, and the cheering. All it was. Cheering, cheering_ cheering. _Cheering and gunfire._

 _I went in that place with three guys. I… I don't know where they are. I don't know if they made it out. I don't know if_ two _of them made it out. I know about Martin. Martin's fucking dead. Those things, they carted him out of the cell, fed him that piss-drink, made him see stars, he said…_

 _Then there was that-_ "

-For however impressionistic and elongated the rambling tirade had been, no matter how _convincing_ its rapidity and allure had sounded, nothing was going to save that man from Sanford had earlier encountered.

After but a brief flicker of static, the grim-faced Sanford Tobs allowed a cold frown to play down his mandible when the gunfire started.

The radio's muffled connection to the disc's contents made the sounds soupy, and though they lacked accuracy and crystal tone, the burn and hiss of carbon-based battery rotators was unmistakable to his experienced ears.

 _ClapClapClapClap-_ the reverberating chorus of cracks that ultimately spoke miles of a Laser weapon's ferocity, it was present, in the background. Judging by the following lack of the man's voice, and the calamitous _thunk-thunk~!_ –given off by the receiver recording, Sanford assumed it safe to say that he was listening to the Assualtron assassin scoring a direct hit on the subject in question.

That had been the entire recording. It had gone on for a long and confusing four or five minutes. It was nothing but that dead man- or, who Sanford assumed was the dead man –reeling and rambling.

The man spoke of jail cells, piss-tasting solution being forced down his throat, cheering, gunshots, people vanishing and bright lights.

One could easily pawn off the rampant flurry of nonsense as nothing more than a narcotic-induced mirage, or an episode of sleepless, waking nightmares.

Though, insomnia, chemical influence and even madness this was not. It all made sense, actually, and really. All the stories going around in Diamond City about Helios were coincidentally running amok. The disappearances and the strange noises were all over the Commonwealth radio. Now, Sanford had been personally led to the discovery of an Assaultron custom modified hunter-killer and its victim.

If nothing else, was Sanford morbidly curious about two things.

One: who or what was this mysterious faction or person that had taken up residence in the old mall?

Two, and most disconcerting: hadn't he only recently wiped out the Institute, driven away the Enclave, and broken the Gunners' jaws? Things had seemed pretty cleaned-up a few days ago. Where the hell did all these psychopaths come from?

 _Excellent question, that one._

Sanford sighed and clicked off the radio's volume dial, stewing for a long moment in the darkness of his workshop.

 _First, a battalion of lunatics led by a murdering, rapist warlord, then an army of body-snatching machines, then a military-grade gang, and now…?_

Now what? Some… _tinkerer?_ A robotics tinkering kidnapper who made his or her prisoners drink urine? What a combo.

What was next? A Super Mutant chieftain wearing a skirt, bonnet, and a name-tag from a Wal-mart vest reading ' _Bill'?_

This whole damned wasteland was insane. Helios used to be such a cool hangout place. There had been the old arcades and the cotton candy stands, and those boring women's shoe stories, and the appliance outlets.

Sanford had to admit, that the idea of his old childhood stomping grounds being turned into an apparent murder-pit cored a deep hole in his heart. It was as if nowhere on Earth was safe from this spreading corruption.

 _Figures, something rolls around. I guess it was only a matter of time._

Sanford tiredly left the disc in the radio and stood up from his workbench.

 _I'm too tired for this shit._

The faint chirp of crickets melded was the slow and haunting coo of the nighttime breeze. The rustling of papers was a distant and interruptive insurrection amid the evening atmosphere. The glare of the moonlight flowed as transparent curtains of silver and into the lobby of the kiosk.

Sanford stood on the black-white tiled floor of his commercial home, stepping away from the door to the garage with an air of normalcy.

 _It's actually really quiet here. I never notice that as much as I should._

He leaned on the edge of one of the window-lined diner tables and glanced outside at the hydroponic crops spreading from the center of the dirt-gardens like a bushel of probing, green tentacles.

Those plants were ancient by this point. Old men, or, perhaps, old _women_ who had bore their fruits for years, left to exist in purgatory because of the ruined ecosystem of this blasted planet.

Sanford sometimes wondered about snow. He hadn't seen it since the bombs dropped and he'd woken up on ice. He'd been out here for over a decade, and it had never once been kissed by Winter in Boston.

 _Ain't that curious._

Perhaps, if time had ever allowed him to, Sanford would migrate, as always a part of him had wanted to in the back of his mind. Maybe instead of migrating west, he'd migrate _north._ North and north, until he reached the old Canadian borderzone.

 _Maybe it still snows there. I wonder how Nyx would-_

" _High-aye, and say; 'Democracy'~!_ " –a shrill, metallically touched voice screamed.

Before Sanford could even quirk a brow, the air became buzzed with the distinct heaviness of preposterously loud vocal volume, and the stinging sensation of pain.

 ** _Clang~!_** –Hancock couldn't help himself. The flat of his buzzsaw attachment rebounded off the back of Sanford's head with the vibrant velocity of a hurled and blunt object.

"- _Ouch~!_ " Sanford barked, slamming his fists into the dining table to steady himself. The blow had nearly knocked him off his feet. The enraged scavenger shoved off from the table's rim, spun around and glared at the cackling robot with a bullish snarl. "- _Son of a bitch, Hancock~!_ "

"- _Ha-haaa~!_ Oh, the look on your monkey face was just _priceless!_ " The Mr. Gutsy laughed, bobbing in the air gleefully. "Metal to skull; guess who wins yet again? _The Han'!_ Pre-packeged, red-blooded, American-brand whoopass in a can!"

"Yeah, _can._ " Sanford remarked, his face turning a bright shade of crimson as he tenderly rubbed the back of his scalp. "You always interrupt people's thinking like that?"

"Only on Sundays!"

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"'Cause that's the day all those bible-thumpers swarm on the streets and ring their damned church bells!" The robot growled, floating backwards in his space with an afterburner's hiss. "It's a god-damned travesty! Every bit of it! What do those tie-wearing, wife-beating Catholics know about faith anyhow?"

"You've got me, bud', I'm not Catholic." Sanford spat glumly, looking back out the window at his modest, walled-in property. "… _Not even dad was._ " –He added in a slight whisper. "Ya' know that? That man tried to escape what he did in such… _weird_ and unusual ways."

"How so, sir?" Hancock levitated by the scavenger's flank, trying and failing to find the intrigue with staring out the window sill similarly. "War's just as much a part of the man who wages it as the man who starts it. We're all guilty of it, so what difference does it make when everyone's to blame and we all have our different ways of denying the truth? Sounds like a cavalcade of pansy-ass fudge-packers to me!"

"I dunno', it's- _gah,_ fuck it, man, what did you do to me…?" Sanford hissed, rubbing a welt on his skull. "-It just feels like most of the time, soldiers come home, and if they have something to run from, they either grab bottles of booze, beat their loved ones or go to church every day. Ordy didn't do any of that. He… he like… _buried it,_ in his work."

" _Hm._ " Hancock vocalized a grunting sound, his ocu-lenses lowering in perplexion. It was funny; seeing as he lacked a brain, and he still underwent these periodic pauses like he was lost in _thought._ Could machines think? Or was it all processes and code-linings?

 _I've interacted with enough of them to know that answer,_ Sanford mentally chimed. _Hancock's alive, like me. He's just a bloodless life, where I'm a remorseless life. This isn't remorse, it's_ trauma.

"A wise man once told me; that the world keeps on a-frikken' turnin' with or without our say-so. Mother Murica' may be dead and rotting, but we still have to claim what we can off of her corpse." Hancock turned a single lens on his longtime companion. "Her fat, bloated, STD-ridden corpse. Ah. Ah-ha. _Yeah._ Fuck! I just sounded like Kennedy with his rousing speeches! That toupe-wearing bastard!"

" _…_ _I liked Kennedy._ " Sanford mumbled, finally ending his laboring over his wounded head. "Where'd you hear all that from? You never struck me as an inspirational speaker. No offense."

"None taken! People don't need _emotional support,_ they need a good foot in the crotch!" Hancock cackled. "And I'm looking at the man who said those things, you idiot!" The robot poked him on the ribs with his claw. "You looked me right in my grizzled lenses and spoke your mind. Years ago. Not too long after I saved your ass and joined your little one-man posse!"

"You didn't _save my ass,_ you just…" Sanford shrugged with a deep chuckle. "- _took off some pressure._ "

" _-I call a steaming pile of horseshit!_ " Hancock snapped. "You would've been _dead_ without me, you scab! Brothers in arms! The G.I to go with your _Joe!_ We're the American Badasses! The two man army!"

"We _were_ right?" Sanford laughed. "Then Nyx happened."

" _Yeah,_ and then the smelly French toad with opposable thumbs plowed in and shit on everything." Hancock groaned. "Ya' know, _sometimes,_ when that narcissistic, Parisian gecko gets on my case like she did tonight, it just makes me wanna'- _wanna'-~!_ "

Sanford snickered, ducking, as the whirring blade of Han's buzzsaw sliced the air from the west and then the east.

"-Watch that thing." He said with disinterest.

"- _Can't I turn her into a crocodile-skin pair of boots~?_ " Hancock pleaded. "I'm telling you! I have a hidden passion inside this rusty self! A passion for- for- _lizard-skin art!_ "

"Hm." Sanford scrunched his lips. "…So lemme' get this straight; you want to design women's clothing products?"

" _No!_ No! You're putting words in my mouth, you flea-bitten skank!"

"Let's just paint you pink, and give you a sparkling silver wig while we're at it." The scavenger winked. "We can call you ' _The Fabulous Han'.'"_

"-Son of a _pig,_ I'm gonna' be ill!" Hancock cried, much to Sanford's loud amusement. "You're a cruel man!"

"You're wondering why you've stuck around this long?"

" _No!_ I'm wondering how I'm still functional!" Hancock shook his chassis, listening to some of the loose bolts ricochet around inside his hull. "All this crap and _somehow_ I haven't met the maker! What a miracle!"

"Up against the world, handcuffed to me and Nyx." Sanford tisked. "You've got it rough."

"Forget _that,_ what I've got is worse than a pair of handcuffs, you demented turd!" The Mr. Gutsy ranted. "It's worse than _two!_ It's- It's…"

"Yeah?"

"-ah, who the hell am I kiddin'?" The robot sighed. "Sir? I'd have been scrap metal if wasn't for you."

"Really?" The latter's eyes met his lenses.

"Damn straight, and you're not getting any more of an emotional response from me on it!" Hancock wiggled his claw smugly, as if he'd won some sort of unspoken bet. "Just- take that knowledge, and… and just… _know,_ alright? Don't ever question yourself, you big fat-headed douche! I-I'm here for ya'!"

"I understand completely."

"Really?"

" _Totally._ " Sanford grinned. "You're a good man, Han'."

"A _man?_ " Hancock harrumphed, sounding the oldest he had in a very long time. The scavenger laughed at him and patted the robot gruffly on the side, hand slapping against the rusty metal.

"You're a man to me, my friend." Sanford said. "-Even if you sneak up behind me and hit me in the head when I'm thinking."

" _Necessities!_ " Hancock snapped. "Gotta' keep up my image! By the way; any of those thoughts shareable, sir?"

"Sure are." Sanford nodded.

"Roger that! What's the battle intel?"

"I listened to that disk." The scavenger conceded. "You were right about one thing at least; that guy had a lot to say before… you know, the _end._ "

"Figured as much." The robot grunted. "It's just something about the facial features of you people! I just look at some of you, and I can tell which of you are gutless bitches and which of you aren't! I looked at his dead face, and in the face of my mind, I could just hear the echo…. _Bitch…. bitch… bitch…_ "

"-Yeah, well, anyhow, I listened to this guy-"

"- _Bitch! Bitch… bitch…_ " Hancock jammed his ocu-lenses into Sanford's face. The man sputtered and swatted the incessant machine back.

"- _Han',_ c'mon." Sanford growled.

"Alright, alright! Spit it out!"

"The problem's at Helios Shopping Center, like we suspected." Sanford said. "There are bad things happening over there. People are talking about loud noises, gunfire and disappearances. Well this guy says he escaped from there, and that he was being kept in a jail cell, was being forced to drink foul solutions, and he even described the same noises other people have been describing."

"Huh," Hancock muttered. "and that little shit didn't say anything about how he got out?"

"Didn't have time." The scavenger shook his head. "You can hear the Assaultron shoot him. He didn't talk about how he was captured, or how he escaped before it happened."

"Fantastic, 'cause there's always gotta' be this ass-end annoying sense of foreboding to everything we do!" Hancock growled. "I'm wondering how he even recorded himself onto that disc without a device! We didn't find one on him!"

"Maybe the Assaultron destroyed it." Sanford shrugged. "It doesn't matter; we've gotten his message. Scumbag or not, he just might have tipped us off to a really important problem here, Han'."

"So what's our approach?" The robot asked. "We go in guns blazing, treads rolling, virgin-girls screaming and throwing us their panties?"

"Something like that." Sanford grinned. "Tomorrow, I'm taking a stroll over there after morning runs. I'll get you and Nyx and we're gonna' find out what's going on in Helios."

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

The crisp wasteland air always tasted like cold sulfur to her in the mornings. That probably had more to do with her heightened sense of smell than the actual purveying wreak that was in the world these days, but she digressed. It was nothing more of a plaintive note anyhow. The place stunk the worst at this time of day and when the sun was at its highest and strongest.

To her, Boston merely carried the scent of old bones. Here was a place tortured more by its distant past and immediate present than a longstanding historical sense of grueling apostasy. New York and Pennsylvania hadn't smelled like that during her migration, and neither had Connecticut.

Those places were home to too much death from the ICBMs to escape such dramatic, and sour tastes from her perception. For someone whose olfactory and sensory organs were so linked, Nyx could wittily grovel down her experiences and put them into fancy, stylized sentences, like the people who wrote the books she read.

Boston smelt of old bones, because it was a tired land stained with blood infrequently. New York carried the smell of a rotting cadaver. The dirt of maggots, the swell of swine shit, and the stabbing mediocrity of lost humanity.

 _Rang et degoutant._

The slight taste of rotten eggs made her snort, more from the prior memory than anything else.

Boston wasn't as lifeless, and that she'd give. But it did remind her of darker places, places filled with nothing but dead hills, dead woods and blast craters. That migration, and her fleeing had been an utter nightmare that had lasted years, where the sky, earth and horizon were all so black, that she had felt like she had been wandering in the void of space.

Nowadays, problems had become much more _domestic,_ in a sense. It had been months, and this attempt on Sanford's head had been the only action they'd seen in half that time.

Nyx wasn't eager as the _usiner_ was for bloodshed. Though it contradicted her very nature and her species' ethics by design; her passions lye in the realm of the written word and the eccentric. Books and languages fascinated her, not the ripping of flesh and the screams of the dying.

 ** _Thud~!_** –went the earth as the Deathclaw landed on her palms and knees, rumbling deeply behind her shaped breast.

The thought was almost amusing to her; just how misunderstood she truly was to the rest of this pig-shit world. Humanity pulled all the strings on Earth as they always had. Something seemed unadulterated in the realization that those same strings had pulled back and shattered everything on the first try.

How many times had the world made to sunder their kind from the planet's surface? What with hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and wild predators?

And yet humankind was able to sunder away everything they'd accomplished on their _own_ throughout all that? And even on the first attempt?

 _And they say my people are the mindless animals._

Nyx vaulted from her placement on the dirt, her limbs spreading in a quadruped flower for traction, as she sailed twenty feet through the air, and landed expertly on the flanking face of a large boulder mound.

 _En fait, I suppose that assumption is half correct._

Most Deathclaws _were_ mindless animals, not that she thought about it. But the comparison was no different for her than comparing Sanford to Feral Ghouls was for _him._ Both of their species had their bad-eggs, and their mutated ones too. One just had to remember the division between them and stay on the ride side of that border.

 _I fancy myself having done that with finesse._

Nyx slid on her leathery heels down the boulder's other face, and landed with a quiet summersault on the hill beyond. Head over hips, the Deathclaw was a quiet, large and scaly stone rolling through the grass.

 _At least that migration taught me something._

Nyx grinned toothily, and her balled travel was terminated with a swift unraveling of her slender body.

 _Whoosh~!_ –whistled the air as she flew, her tail wriggling in passage behind her, armored and thick.

 _Nobody is faster than me._

 _Parkour,_ Sanford had described it as. Nyx had never offered her abilities anything more than a mere shrug of nonchalant disinterest whenever the subject had been brought up.

The Deathclaw had spent so long learning to evade Enclave aircraft that she could cross virtually any terrain without excessive difficulty. Hills, rocklands, ruins and forests; nothing slowed her down. She could vault, roll, slide and barrel through anything.

 _Avec perfection._

The reptile landed gracefully on her heels, hunched her armored back, and tested the air with a few flicks of her forked, daggering tongue.

 _There it is._

Nyx's yellow eyes dilated at the meat-smell wafting on the morning breeze. Though the gray sky above doted on her with a slight glimmer from the revealing sun, to her prey she was nothing more than an unseen ripple of color in an already drab background.

Nyx slunk in the fingery extrusions of the dead ferns, and halted briefly, hunching like a patient feline around the foot of a large and burnt oak tree.

Staying as still as she was, her dark scales and her dark horns blended perfectly with the dead foliage of the woodland. The sun highlighted her a slight white, and that further acted to blind the less-intelligent other her focus was glued upon.

 _Turn your back,_ Nyx silently asked, being careful though, to not allow weakness in herself through begging it. _So it may be quick, animal._

On all six hooves and this close, the Radstag actually appeared much more intimidating than it had from farther away. Its two buck-heads were bowed, their fanged mouths undulating in a bovine's twist as they grazed on drably colored grass. The mutated animal's wolf-like tail swept like a raggedy feather-duster behind it, and its exposed spine gleamed in the morning sun.

 _An ugly beast,_ Nyx licked her nose, opening the fingers on one of her claws, with slow precision, in accordance to how a Venus-fly-trap would unfurl and prepare for an unsuspecting victim to land within it. _But they make delicieux steaks._

-That had been her latest craving these last few weeks. Ever since Sanford had run out of those fantastic Salisbury boxes (which she still denied what she knew, in that she'd eaten all of them like a glutton) –it had been Radstag Steaks, the ones Sanford made in that little field kitchen out back.

Something about the game-ish taste set her appetite alight. Nyx was not a fan of the coppery taste of blood, and she had abhorred her life in the wild and the necessity of raw-meat she'd been forced to subsist on for so long in the past.

It was curious then as to why deer appealed to her so much. Maybe she just liked the bloody tange _with_ proper cooking.

 _Sanford is very accomplished. He can cook,_ Nyx enjoyed a second of distraction, baring her sharp, wicked fangs in a smile as she shivered from the belly-down. _–And he pleases me on top of all that._

Hunting was the least she couldn't done, she supposed. Whilst Sanford and Hancock were off on their morning patrols, she had opted to find them lunch, or, perhaps _brunch._ It was still pretty early. Needless to say, the local Radstags had never been brought so low in population as to ration their demises. There were thousands of the ugly things running around, and this fat, juicy buck was just the perfect morsel out of that endless tide.

 _Viens a maman…_

Nyx's talons slid slowly from their sheaths within her claws' fingers. The reptile's neck hunched, her face modeling an expression of strict concentration. Nimbly, her draconic foot compressed into the dry, bone-like humus of the woodland floor, and managed to do so without the slightest indication of sound.

Ahead, the Radstag kept on grazing. It did at least raise one of its two heads, and crane the hideous snout around to survey the trees with disinterest.

The motion was futile, as its eye-sight wasn't anywhere near good enough, and it was being caught off-guard. Nyx- even though she was right in front of it –was all clear.

 _Parfait,_ she licked her nose again. _Now show me your back, so I may-_

The Radstag snorted, and its hooves clopped into the earth quietly as it looped around, and bent over another patch of grass that had been to its south.

Nyx's eyes dilated fully, her muscles tensed and her legs _spasmed,_ like springs being flicked by a dragging finger.

With a shrill outcry did the massive reptile whip from the thickets with the speed of a bullet. The Radstag seemingly ran in place, its hooves moving, but taking it nowhere as it reacted to the panic stabbing into its breast.

It ran ruts in the earth before it started to gain traction. All of this was measured in the span of two seconds, and it was still too late.

Bones crunched, Nyx landed across the animal's back, and took it and herself into a heavy roll across the earth. The Radstag's terrible bleats were silenced in moments. The dust settled, and the wind howled. Nyx snorted, rose on a knee from the animal's corpse, and let her talons slide agonizingly from their impalings at the base of the stag's two necks.

The corpse twitched, and with a brief flick of her wrists, she took the momentum of her talons west and eastward. Flesh ripped and blood spattered on the grass. The two gory craniums flapped free and rolled onto the earth separately, their stump-necks gushing deep crimson spouts of syrupy detritus.

 _Belle._

Nyx grunted a moment later, and the animal's heavy corpse was cast over her shoulder, rendered near weightless by her enhanced strength.

 _I'm certain mon cher will be delighted with this find of mine._

Nyx felt the brief adrenaline being whittled down by the satisfaction she felt, even as the corpse left a trail of blood behind her.

The satisfaction of the hunt was only topped by the satisfaction of enjoying its _fruits_ after the fact. She had no doubt that she would relish whatever culinary delights her significant other would carve up from the meat. Such fantasies were rampant in the Deathclaw's mind, and it distracted her enough to make her feel giddy.

 _What a life I live,_ she thought, an embarrassed grin working itself onto her chops. _What a story I've led._

She fondly remembered last night as a sort of accomplishment, and that, in turn, did make her modestly remind herself of the depth in that.

But perhaps there was a logical answer in that. She's overheard Sanford and Hancock's discussion last night about Ordy, Sanford's father.

Now, Nyx did not have an understanding of human religions worth her life, but she knew enough about them and what they meant to the people who practiced them to say her following statements with confidence. Sanford had been talking about how so many people ran from their past deeds through the use of religion; and more and more was that idea of a higher being… _intriguing_ to her. It was very odd.

 _Perhaps I should hunt down books on the matter. A copy of a bible?_

She snorted.

 _Lest I indulge in the works of the people who are responsible for this world. But what else is there?_

Sanford was always suffering the ill effects of what he had done, and the life he had lived. Nyx was not a fool to the human condition; her male was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, usually, something acquainted with soldiers, rape victims and maliciously placed positions of misfortune.

Nyx could not say that Sanford was a free conscience, and certainly, he had done things in the past that she had struggled with, but Nyx had always learned to live with those things as past events. To her, what was done was done. She supposed that was easier to accept in _saying_ than in action.

 _He has taken many lives._

( _-_ And she doubted she'd ever know just how many, but she digressed.)

- _He has always taken lives in just cause. He doesn't fear hell, and neither do I._

Nyx listened to the blood pattering on the ground behind her from the Radstag's gushing necks. A warm dabble on her tail told her that her distractions had allowed that mess to extend to her hide.

Thus, with an annoyed grunt, did the Deathclaw let the corpse slouch off her shoulder, and land on the ground beside her.

 _Clmp~!_ –the cadaver went. The earth hissed as she grabbed two of its hooved feet and proceeded to drag it the rest of the way home.

 _The rapport sexuels seems to take his mind off of it,_ she hummed in thought. _Maybe I should attempt to use my mouth like he does. Do males not enjoy those kind of things?_

-But Nyx thought about that a moment longer, and the point was decidedly reinforced when she stuck a thumb talon into her maw, and scratched the tip down the long length of one of her many large fangs.

 _D'autre part… I do kiss him nicely with these. It would help if-_

Nyx stopped herself, even as her free claw wandered to, and brushed over her slender chest with a hiss of scale to palm.

 _It would help if I had_ those…

Nyx snorted again.

What was she thinking? To Sanford, she was beautiful, and _powerful._ She didn't need a human woman's body to attain that with him. Even last night! Distracted or not, he'd looked at her like she was a freshly cooked Brahman steak!

 _Tu parles betement,_ she thought. _You are intricate._

Nyx dragged the corpse with a lofty smile.

Then, when she tasted the air with her tongue again, she caught a whiff of something peculiar.

 _Wait,_ Nyx slowed her trot to a crawl. Her golden eyes narrowed, and she tested the air again, this time, with dutiful purpose. _That tastes… metallic._

 ** _Snap~!_** –went a nearby twig.

The Deathclaw snarled and turned on her flank, letting an animalistic hiss rumble out through her teeth. She purposefully snapped her finger joints as to cause her talons to erupt outwards with noise.

 ** _Shssk~!_** –they snapped loudly, extending from her tips, and hanging sharply.

"Who goes there?" The reptile thrummed, her tail whipping. "Come out, or I will go in there and kill you."

For a moment, there was nothing. Nothing except the whip of the wind, and the hollow dim of the woods around her.

Nyx squinted, and she licked her nose.

 _…_ _This is…_

She huffed.

… _Bon dieu, I am paranoid._

Just when she was letting her claws slide back into her fingers, the air crackled, and Nyx was rocked back onto her heels when a pair of hot projectiles smacked into her right breast.

The blow would've felled a human, but due to the armored carapace the Deathclaw enjoyed, these shots merely ate into her exterior scales and singed the more supple flesh beneath.

Still, her bark of pain was evidence enough that her being able to deal with the damage did not render it pleasant. She dropped the feet of her hunting kill, rolled her shoulders, and advanced towards the hedge-line on all fours.

 _I see you, connard._

There, in the ferns and dead shrubs.

The humanoid shape rose from a crouch, materializing out of a branch of flickering, thin air on a whim. The blackly colored creature was made of metal, with a single, glowing red eye in the center of its narrow head.

 _A machine, like the usiner,_ Nyx observed in her sprint. _Assaultron._

More Laser fire crackled out, and Nyx stormed through it with a defiant snarl, letting her body take the brunt of that assault.

 _Is that the best you have, demon?_

The Deathclaw sailed through the air, smashing the spindly bodies of ferns beneath her hails as she landed in her attacker's midst.

The Assaultron slipped back in an errant side-step, ducking through the resulting hail of plant shreds and wood chips as Nyx bellowed in rage, and swept the air in its place with a clean strike of her talons, missing by inches.

 _Fuck._

Stumbling through the brush, with her stomping through it to reach it, the Assaultron retreated backwards sluggishly, brandishing a pair of arms tipped with razor-sharp claws and wrist-mounted Laser blasters.

 _I don't like your toys._

Nyx flicked her wrist in an underhanded swipe, drawing shreds of blackened steel and sparks as her talons ate through the Assaultron's breast.

 _Give me them._

Wrapping one of the robot's forearms between her thumb and index, Nyx did not even experience a moment of sensitive resistance from the machine's internals. She merely yanked backwards, and the Assaultron's arm up to the shoulder popped out of its socket, leaving an airborne seepage of black drippings and scrap in its wake.

The robot produced a hideous garbling sound from the damage, falling back onto its rear in the foliage.

 _You're mine._

Nyx went in for the kill, but then, she noticed the crimson glare that was stabbing into her eyes.

In that split second, the Deathclaw gasped, seeing the swirling, building energies warping around the Assaultron's center eye-lens like some kind of sorcerous touch of witchcraft.

The reptile ducked, and the center-beam Laser's scream echoed virulently across the woodland. The armor-piercing pylon of carbon energy stabbed right over Nyx's head in a near miss, and vanished into the sky above.

 _Enough of this,_ Nyx hissed and barked, she tackled the prone, smaller assailant, and soon its garbling, metallic jerks and pinging ended with a crunch of metal. _Die._

Nyx allowed a satisfied and victorious purr to thrum in the back of her throat. She rose from her straddling of the sparking, soot-belching remains, and promptly leaned her face over to her side.

" _-Pa-thoo~!_ " –The Deathclaw puckered her snout, and the Assaultron's crushed, severed head bounced wetly away nearby.

 _Black, with cloaking, Lasers and precise aim…_ Nyx sneered as examined the destroyed robot. _Is this…?_

She stomped over to the thing's spit-drenched head, and bent lower to view its cranium, marked from her fangs and shredded effectively.

 _It is._

Sanford had been onto something, and whoever this was didn't appear to like that.

The same white skull symbol Sanford had described to her was there.

 _It seems that Raider was not this felon's only target._

Nyx swept her eyes about her surroundings, and turned around to gather up the Radstag's corpse on the path.

 _I have to warn Sanford._

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-


	4. Chapter 4 - Time for Action

**IV**

 **Time for Action**

* * *

Gingerly, did Sanford kneel at the side of the road, the joints in his suit creaking and whirring beneath the weight of the armor plates.

 _What have we here?_ –The scavenger thought with a cold sigh. _The wasteland's latest victim._

The bones were too fragmented, thrown about and cleaned of any identifying organics for him to recognize the person's gender or age. There was not even the slight touch of ragged apparel or shredded clothes. It was nothing more than a strip of dirt, some femurs, half a skull and some rib shards. No hands or feet or a pelvis. No spine either.

 _Torn apart._

Sanford grimly frowned, and his X-01 whirred silently as he pressed a pair of metal fingers against the skull's half on the ground.

 _Rest in peace._

The scavenger dragged himself back to his heels, and looked around the road, reluctantly tearing his attention from the shattered fragments of humanity at his feet.

New England's morning air was brightly penetrated by a glaring view of the sun. The big carbon ball of illumination shown down across the hills, the woods, and the rows of old world houses dominantly and beautifully. Dust devils in their whippings about the road's pavement were made into bronze-colored phantoms, that whisked in and out of existence on the fly.

 _All we need's a good tumbleweed, and we'll have the ghost town of storybooks._

Sanford smirked, despite the sadness in his heart. Just as he was stepping back onto the street, something feather-light whispered across the ground, and hopped over his boots in a quiet, hissing arc.

The man gawked at the tiny, head-sized tumbleweed as it finished its bounding traverse down the left lane, and vanished over the bend of a sidewalk.

 _Hot damn, ain't that a kicker?_

Sanford shoved the vision of the bones out of his mind and chuckled, keeping his back to them, whilst he reasserted himself into his morning routine.

 _Not much farther now._

Morning patrols were an important part of their schedule. They were meant to ensure that the surrounding area was… _stable,_ with a lack of better description. Not that anything out here was ever safe entirely, but it stood as a good pointer for him, Nyx and Hancock to make sure no Raiders or highwaymen were setting up shop right under their noses.

The purpose of the rounds was just to make sure things hadn't gone batshit in the night prior. Sanford and Hancock would split up, and scout the area around their home for any unknown campsites or predator dens. Sure, it was risky, and it took a long time to accomplish, but the scavenger couldn't see any value in _not_ seeing it done.

 _Better than waiting around inside that station all day,_ he thought glumly, bouncing the stock of his Laser Rifle in his other gauntlet. _Things seem quiet._

Aside from a few Radstags that had scattered in his wake, and an errant Radroach he'd educated with the sole of his steel foot, there hadn't been much occurrences on the road. The Commonwealth was calm today, caught under a slight breeze, good sunlight and the occasional caw from a mutated scavenger bird.

 _All systems are working good,_ Sanford blink-cycled through a few of the internal monitors inside his suit, seeing gauges for the reactor core stability, the medical injection nozzles, the plating integrity and the internal climate moderations.

Sanford almost experienced a thoughtful reminder that- ' _His father would be proud' –_ but the horror of his family's past actions silenced any potential hope of realizing that sentence to fruition.

Truthfully, Sanford hated that man with every fiber of his being. If it wasn't enough that his father had become a murderer and a lord of terror, he _had_ overseen the kidnapping of Nyx at the hands of those synth assassins.

Probably more than anything, _that_ enraged Sanford the most. The synths hiding in the local populations was one thing of evil, but nabbing his lizard and shoving her in a tube? That was a _no no._

 _Ordy Tobs,_ Sanford snorted. _And I bear the same name as him. Hell._

He couldn't actually believe all of that had happened just a few months ago. It hadn't even been complete year. All that shooting, and that death, and the destruction of the Institute, and the _Texan Terror._

Sanford had to close his eyes for a moment as he thought about that last bit. The Texan Terror, the Superintendent of the Enclave of the Reinstated American Government, Laslar Sedunn. Never before had Sanford been exposed to such wanton hatred.

Granted, he was more of an engine of destruction than most folks, but something about Laslar had been completely and utterly animalistic. It was as if the Superintendent was a demon, mindlessly slaughtering everything in front of it without care of whose banner they flew under.

 _We never found a body._

-Sanford knew what that meant, and he had no doubt that over the course of the following days since that final battle, he'd probably seen one of the several Vertibirds leaving Boston that was carrying Laslar.

The Enclave had pulled out after a brief but nasty fight. Sanford had downed at least two of their airships, and he'd killed nearly forty of their people. He had no doubt that the skirmish had added yet another powerful faction in the world that had him on their shit-list. The Enclave would make their next move one day, and he just had to be ready.

 _Maybe they're behind the Assaultron assassin, and Helios._

Sanford narrowed his eyes as he walked around the smashed hulk of a burnt out sedan.

 _Not likely. The Enclave isn't one for mercenaries. They think their own shit doesn't stink._

It didn't leave many options aside from the fact that a new face was in town, and Sanford did not like that one bit.

 _Today. It ends today, whatever it is, whoever it is, me, Han' and Nyx will-_

Sanford stopped near the stoop of a blown-out colonial home. His eyes registered the disturbance before his suit did.

 _Signatures Detected!_ –his suit sang in green, ill text. _Five Human._

 _I see them._

Sanford unclicked the safety on his rifle, let the resonators spin, and fell to a slight crouch behind the wood steps of the house's stoop, wedging himself in the tall grass and behind the railing and boards.

 _Not the best I've had, but it'll do._

On the horizon, over a rise in the street's hill-crossing ahead, he could just barely make out a quick flicker of darker movement as a collection of people scattered, having noticed his own presence as he in turn had noticed theirs.

 _This oughta' be interesting._

Sanford aimed down his sights. He reached over to the flank of his gun, unscrewed the security lock, and let the custom-made precision scope snap onto the rifle's spine mounting.

 _Let's see what we've got today._

The green aura cast over the view in the scope bathed the street a sickly hue. Sanford grunted and flicked off the scope's nightvision filter with a dismissive cast of his index finger.

 _They aren't moving,_ he realized, focusing the dais of the aiming reticule on the corner of a house, and a nearby burnt out car's corpse. Two positions, right next to each other. Sanford's finger itched at the trigger as he saw a head raise, and then jolt back down a second later.

 _They don't know how to relocate,_ the scavenger mumbled a pitying curse under his breath. _This'll be easy._

Silently, the man dragged his suit's weight westward, and he skirted in a crouch until he was around the house's flank and advancing down through its rear property.

His boots thudded the earth, and the ruined, wooden suburban fence on either side of him rattled as he hopped over a dip in the earth and moved forwards. He transitioned to the next backyard, and checked his scanner whilst maintaining a fluent jog.

 _Still not moving._

Sanford cautiously breathed as the suit's servos allowed him to cope with the X-01's mass. He took his finger off the trigger, and managed a struggled sigh.

 _Calm it down, Tobs, and see who you're about to shoot before you actually shoot._

Inching around the corner of a house, Sanford found the perfect area to flank this mysterious group of people. If this had been a firefight, it would've spelled their death-sentences. This vantage point left their side completely exposed. People tended to huddle to the cover they were using in gunfights, and the horror of being flanked was that it was like knocking down a row of dominoes for the flanker.

Just a straight line of fire down the spine of a defensive spread, and you could kill a lot of people, especially if you had height advantage.

Sanford licked his lips, listening to his suit purr as he glanced around the wooden corner of the house.

 _There you are,_ he thought darkly, raising the rifle in his fingers, until the sights were lined up with a huddle of crouched bodies behind the first position he'd marked; the sedan. _I don't care how you stupid you bastards may or may not be, you saw me, you took cover, I take that as a threat, and I'm gonna'-_

Sanford sucked in his own breath until his chest hurt. As if warding a predator away from some vulnerable babe, he forced his finger off the trigger, and immediately lowered the gun.

 _Oh my god,_ his heart pumped at the brevity of what he'd nearly done.

He'd expected to see a grizzled, hideous Raider on the other side of his reticule, or a Gunner, or some thug with a pipe or handgun. Instead, right as he was about to shoot, he saw the one thing that instilled nightmares in any sensible servicemen put in such a position.

He saw a woman and a child.

She had to have been in her late twenties or early thirties, she was thin, wearing a brown trenchcoat and a pair of scavenged leather pauldrons. Her face was slender, with a triangular, youthful nose and two hazel eyes beneath crimson brows. A redhead, her short-trimmed hair was almost at the length of peachfuzz on her scalp, and the small little girl by her flank mimicked this genetic likeness to the dot, except she had ponytails.

 _Mom and daughter,_ Sanford realized. _I almost shot a fucking kid._

Immediately, the scavenger grit his teeth and paused in his efforts to confront these people. He had not listened to his own advice. He'd even specifically told himself to stay his hand! He'd ordered it! And he still was too edgy for his own good.

 _At least nothing happened,_ Sanford glanced back around the corner, and he saw the three other people in the group, two by the house rim beside the sedan, and one peaking over the redheaded woman's back. _Nothing happened_ yet.

These folks made him more nervous. One of them was armed, and he was packing. It was an Army standard issue Assault Rifle that he had in his hands, with his lower face covered in the black swathe of a bandana. He had a coat over himself too, though this was one strapped with kinds of protective plates and strips made from truck tires and what looked like metal caging.

 _Sanford; don't just shoot him._

It took a lot for Sanford to muster himself and keep his gun lowered, and it took a lot more for him- even in the armor he was wearing –to step from cover and announce himself.

" _Yo!_ " He shouted into the vox-amplifiers of his helmet. "Who goes there?"

The redhead gave off this awful gasping sound, and the little girl before her vanished in a swift bundle of arms close to the woman's chest. Two men and a teenage boy appeared from behind her, the boy looked related to them, he had brown hair and freckles, and a pudgy face. The two men were different.

"- _Don't move!_ " The one with the bandana over his face screamed. A darker skinned fellow with overalls grunted as the former shoved to the front of the group, and aimed the rifle in his hands at Sanford's head. The scavenger wasn't intimidated as he trotted closer.

 _He can't shoot it,_ Sanford frowned, his eyes keening to the armed man's wrists and their slight trembling. The Assault Rifle looked like it was vibrating with how fiercely its user was quaking. _Guess he didn't expect any Power Armored behemoths to be walking around today._

 _"_ - _I said don't move~!_ " Rifle-man hollered again. The teenage boy and the overalls fellow put themselves between their armed escort's back and the redheaded pair behind them. It was a heart-warming effort, and Sanford was just thankful it was _him_ who had found them and not a band of gangers.

 _Focus on getting this guy to lower his weapon._

"-I'm not gonna' shoot any of you." Sanford held up one of his gauntlets for peace, lowering his rifle one-handed by his flank. He still kept a several foot distance, standing ostensibly in the street before them. "Could you lower your rifle?"

"Who the hell are you?" The rifle-man snapped, refusing the scavenger's request. Sanford could see through the bandana the fighter's brown skin, his stubby nose and a pair of scrutinizing, angry eyes, one of which was green, the other, hidden behind a black eyepatch. "What are you doing out here?"

"I _live_ out here, buddy." Sanford chuckled, smiling when all of them flinched at the metallic _snap~!_ –of his rifle adhering to his suit's hip-plate. "And now _you're_ the only one pointing anything at anybody."

" _Reg',_ " The other man in the overalls whispered, his voice was so low, that Sanford almost missed it. "Reginald, hold on a minute-"

"No way, Orvil, he's a Raider or something." Reginald growled, his fingers flexing on the handle of his rifle.

"A _Raider?_ " The redheaded woman asked. "Raiders don't _talk_ first, they _shoot_ first, Reg'."

"Be quiet." Reginald wasn't having any of these excuses. "He's up to something. You hear me, in that tin can? You _are._ "

 _This is actually amusing,_ Sanford realized with a tiny chortle. There were a multitude of issues with this ' _Reginald'_ s approach to Sanford. The first being; that Assault Rifle wouldn't be able to cause any meaningful damage quick enough before the scavenger was on him and breaking his neck. The second; Reginald was in no place to make statements. Thirdly, Sanford had disarmed himself.

"He put his gun away." The teenage boy by Orvil's side stated, his voice strangely collected for the situation at hand. "Reg'?"

"Orvil, keep that boy close." Reginald said. "We don't know this person. Where'd you get that suit, tin-man?"

"Wouldn't _you_ like to know." Sanford sniggered. "Look, dude, I'm all up for you protecting your family. I'll just walk away. I have a patrol I gotta' finish."

"You're not going anywhere!" Reginald snapped.

" _Reg'!_ " Orvil moved between the woman and the two children, making Reginald flinch as he touched a hand to his coat arm. "Just wait a second-"

" _No!_ You wait a second!" The other shook his head, the bandana over his mouth tenting with his raised volume. "He'll go off and let someone know where we are!"

"Buddy, if I wanted you dead, I'd kill you right where you're standing." Sanford grunted. "I tried to be polite, but my _politeness_ just ran out. Put the gun down or I'm taking it from you."

Reginald's shoulders tensed and he took a step forwards.

" _No,_ stop!" Orvil tugged at him wildly. "Reg', knock it off! Don't you know who this guy is? He's the-"

"- _Agh~!_ " –Reginald screamed femininely. It all happened in the blink of an eye. Metal clicked, gauntlets swung. Sanford- to the naked eye –appeared to flinch, but in reality, the movement was something much more complex.

The scavenger's armored hands swept, and yanked the rifle from Reginald's hands like it was nothing more than a baby's toy. The gun flipped, and soon, Sanford was holding the weapon at his assailant, finger on the trigger.

" _Shit._ " Orvil's eyes bugged in his skull as he and Reginald stepped back with their hands up, the latter's notably higher and much more stiff.

 _Guy's just a train-wreck,_ Sanford shook his head.

"That's _enough,_ fellows." The scavenger uttered under his breath, his words purring out the metal vox of his helmet like a slight cone of steam. "I told you I'm not here to kill anyone."

Sanford tossed the rifle, and it clattered over Reginald's boots.

"-And I don't want your damn gun either, I got enough of those."

"Oh yeah?" The teenager swallowed, hanging by Orvil's side, where he was fervently shushed by the redhaired woman, who was still clutching her little daughter.

" _Definitely_ , kid." Sanford grinned, looking down at the shorter array of human beings past the armored chin of his cuirass. "Now, uh… I know you're _Reginald,_ " The scavenger pointed at the aforementioned man, who still hadn't put his hands entirely down even though a gun wasn't being held to him anymore. "-You're Orvil, I assume?"

"Yeah." The man in the overalls nodded, putting an arm over the teenage boy's shoulders. "-Yeah I am. I think I know who _you_ are too."

"Shoot." Sanford nodded, and then glared at Reginald as he picked up his gun off the street. "-Not _literally,_ bandana-boy."

Reginald's wild and one good eye experienced a tremor. He hugged the gun to his gut and said nothing, staring up at the armored scavenger like he was some kind of ferocious beast.

"He's the Scavenger," The redhead woman interrupted, rising from her crouch behind the wrecked car, she let her daughter out of her arms, and the small girl clung to her waist, watching Sanford around her mother's leg with doe-eyes. "He's that crazy man we keep hearing about."

 _That's presumptuous,_ Sanford blinked.

" _Crazy man?_ " He echoed, suddenly experiencing a slight aura of awkwardness. "I mean, I'm _friends_ with a crazy person, and he's got the buzzsaw to prove it."

"You're the Scavenger, the guy who shredded the Institute." Orvil adjusted his overalls. "That's the truth, yeah? That's what they told us at the border."

" _Border?_ " Sanford grunted, still keeping an eye on Reginald, who had yet to speak again. "You're from out of state?"

" _What?_ " Orvil gawked.

"- _I mean-_ you're from out of the _Commonwealth?_ "

 _Damn pre-war talk._

"Yeah we are." The woman stepped forward, an arm over each of the children. "We came up from Maine."

" _Maine?_ " The scavenger almost gasped. "How is that possible? Most of the East Coast is irradiated and lifeless, you couldn't-"

"We took a boat." Reginald muttered, making everyone look at him. "The Migration Ferry, down at the docks here. We paid for a new life. We got it."

"So you're immigrants?" Sanford tried.

"More like _refugees,_ " Orvil sighed, glaring at Reginald as if the man who spoken too much. "things aren't good where we come from. We shipped out here on account of all these stories we've been hearing, about some titan in armor being a knight of Boston."

"The people at the ferry said you were ' _Stabilizing the Commonwealth',_ " –The woman shrugged. "I couldn't raise my daughter and my son back there, so I took that chance."

"…That's…" Sanford was baffled, and truthfully, he didn't know what else to say. "…A _ferry?_ "

"Old Man Easterwood," Orvil nodded. "he helped us get out of that mess really fast."

"…And how did he know about _me?_ "

"Who doesn't know about you?" The woman shrugged again. "Apparently you're the word of the town, _every_ town. You get around."

" _Reg'_ didn't know about him…" Her son mumbled.

"No he _didn't._ " Orvil agreed. "Reginald, see that? You almost shot a _good guy_ this time."

"Be quiet." Reginald hissed. "I'm here to find you people a dumpoff, not play good-guy bad-guy."

"You're heading to Diamond?" Sanford asked. "Everyone's heading to Diamond these days."

"My brother's the mayor of a settlement west of the city." Reginald shook his head. "I'm getting these people _there_ and heading east."

"Might be for the _best._ " The woman hugged herself, her expression modeling contained anger. If Reginald was impacted by the jabbing comment, he did not show it, though the rifleman still offered her a long, consistent look. He did not appear insulted, just… blank.

 _Personal problems. Not_ my _problem,_ Sanford thought.

"…Y-You said this ferry was in the docks?" He rasped, making to scratch the back of his head, until he remembered that he was still wearing his helmet.

"Old Man Easterwood's boat," Orvil said. "he makes the rounds from Maine, Land Port, Far Harbor, Monty and here. He's always got a big cigar and no hair, you can't miss him, or that ugly trawler he uses."

"I'll add it to my to-do-list." The scavenger fiddled by his hips, his gaze lowered to the street. "What's the trouble in Maine? On the coast?"

"Same trouble in Far Harbor." The woman said. "There's this mist, and people are vanishing in it. Nobody knows what it is."

 _Oh great, a killer shopping mall and now killer clouds,_ Sanford rolled his eyes. _What the fuck._

"I didn't get your names." Sanford interrupted his own thoughts, pointing at the lady and the two kids.

"Marie," The woman gestured to herself. " _Marie_ the second," -To her daughter. "Robert." Her son.

 _No dad?_

-Sanford didn't ask that aloud. Judging by the look Reginald had on his face, he had a feeling that that identity and that man were somehow intertwined.

"You folks have enough supplies for the walk?" He asked instead.

"We've _plenty._ " Reginald growled, and stepped around the larger man's flank. "Come on, people, we need to be there by sundown and we're running out of time."

"As _ever._ " Orvil adjusted his overalls again, seeming dumpy, what with a round pot-belly underneath his shirt. He looked the least grizzled out of the whole group, even out of the children, Robert and Marie. Sanford didn't like that. "I can't believe I met the Scavenger in person, this quick too."

"We figured you'd happen on the settlement at some point." Marie flicked a cautious smile, ushering her and her children after Reginald. "Guess that didn't need to happen."

"Not at all." Orvil smiled. "Hey, Scavenger; what do you look like under that headwear anyhow?"

" _Orvil,_ come on!" Reginald called, already halfway down the street behind them. He stopped with an audaciously sour groan when Marie and her kids stopped walking to watch.

"Nothing special." Sanford shrugged. Cables hissed, couplings detached, and the scavenger smiled cheaply as he cradled the insectoid helmet by his hip. "Just some dude in a suit."

"Just some _dude in a suit._ " Orvil shook his head, examining Sanford's face. "Dayum', and they say legends aren't real."

"How do you know I'm a legend, and everything you heard isn't bullshit?" Sanford asked.

"Because you give people hope." Marie said, smiling again. "You can see it in their faces when they talk about you."

" _Dayum'._ " Orvil was laughing. "Dayum' dayum' _dayum',_ what a day…"

" _Come on._ " Reginald took Marie's arm, and guided the five of them back down the road, glaring once at Sanford before holstering his rifle, and trotting dutifully.

The scavenger stood in the plainness of the street and watched them go, until their forms were dark specs over a rise of road, and then gone from his sight.

Sanford sighed after a long moment, and put his helmet back on.

 _A legend,_ he scoffed, securing the helm's links. _Legends don't murder people. Not good ones anyway._

He didn't know if that statement reaffirmed or contradicted his negative view of himself.

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

" _Monsieur?_ " **_Wham~!_** –went the garage door, and Nyx peered her long head inside inquisitively.

 _Empty._

"Sanford?" The Deathclaw called again, tearing from the garage, sweeping her snout about the interior of the kiosk's lobby. "Sanford!"

 ** _Wham~!_** –went the sleeping room door. Nyx wiggled her larger frame through the arch, pinched some of the conglomerated sheets and mattresses that she and Sanford shared, and lifted them in a tenting arc.

 _Mon dieu, what am I doing?_

"…Sanford?" The Deathclaw breathed, her tail whipping behind her with fury.

"- _Alright! Who left the corpses on the front fuckin' stoop~?_ " –Came from outside the kiosk. It was a faint, metallic voice caught on the wind. A faint and _familiar_ voice.

 _God give me strength._

-There she was, asking some kind of _god_ for things. It was probably Sanford's fault, and all the little humans they interacted with every other day. Their expressions were wearing off on her, and she suddenly felt a need to itch at her own scales like she had contracted fleas.

" _Usiner._ " She called out in an accented shout, shouldering back out of her and Sanford's room.

Outside the kiosk, the daytime sun was glaring brightly right in the center of the heavens, it actually made some of the distant horizons wiggle under the lapping of heat waves. It glinted off Hancock's rusty, drab-colored chassis brightly, forcing the Deathclaw to wince as a sharp pain stabbed into her retinas.

 _Even when he is not trying, he manages to cause me grief._

" _Usiner?_ " Nyx spoke, shielding her eyes from the sun with a spreading palm over her snout. She passed through the reinforced stockade arch and stepped quickly into the surrounding flatland ringing the outpost.

" _You!_ " Hancock did not sound amused at all. The robot was oblivious to her concerned tone, and was too busy levitating with a judgmental flavoring about himself, over a duo of heaped cadavers at the foot of the outpost stockade wall, one bleeding, one sparking and sooting. "I should've known this was _your_ doing, you Nazified _skankosaurus!_ "

" _Usiner,_ I must find Sanford immediately, an attempt was made on my-" Nyx had just been gesturing to the blackened, scabby wounds on her breast when Hancock's words chose to register in her brain.

For a moment, there was silence, and as Hancock drifted closer, his weapons-attachments raised in scrutinous, accusatory intrigue, Nyx's golden eyes narrowed into a dangerous pair of knife blades on either side of her long face.

" _What_ did you call me?" She asked politely, her voice drenched in honey, her prior concerns briefly sunken into a swirling vortex of developing rage.

"You heard me, Tyrannosaurus-Bitch!" The robot snapped, gesturing to the heaped Radstag corpse, and the sparking strip of Assaultron debris laid onto the ground beside it. Nyx had dumped them both off outside the base camp in her rush to find Sanford. She should've known that such a move would've irked the nonsensical malice of Hancock. "You've soiled my Liberty Porch with your Communist-induced viscera! _You're to blame for these cadavers marring my view of this U.S-Brand Soil!_ "

" _Skank?_ You have referred to me as _skank?_ " The Deathclaw snarled, and the air produced a horrid **_Shck~!_** –noise as her talons jutted from their mountings. " _T'es un salaud!_ You are nothing more than a stinking heap of _merde! Va te faire enculer, vous morceau de merde!_ "

"I didn't understand a single buzz of that shit that just flew out of your gizzard, bird-buns," Hancock growled, choosing that moment to permeate the air with a metallic shriek as he whirred his buzzsaw blade. "but my veteran intuition's telling me that them' be _fightin'_ words! _You wanna' go, Puff the Magic Assball? Let's go!_ "

" _Hey~!_ "

-Both Hancock and Nyx spiraled to face their flank, where they saw the approaching form of a familiar suit of Power Armor.

"Sir!" Hancock cheered, lowering his weapons.

" _Sanford._ " Nyx gasped, sheathing her claws. "Sanford, something has happened!"

"What the hell were you two doing?" The scavenger held his arms open, gawking with an offended tone. "Han'? You're pointing weapons at Nyx? _Again?_ And Nyx? You're brandishing your claws at Han'? _Again?_ "

"She started it!" The robot pointed childishly with his claw.

" _Ugh~,_ grow _up, usiner._ " The Deathclaw spat, stepping closer to Sanford. "We would not even have been in this situation were it not for your maddened _pigheadedness_."

" _Sonofabitch-! No one calls the Han' a pig!_ "

" _Both of you!_ " Sanford shouted, placing himself between his feuding companions to hold the peace. Hancock put more power into his thruster to gaze angrily over the man's shoulder pauldron, and Nyx growled in the back of her throat. "What did I miss?"

Sanford glanced between the two of them, before he reached over and ripped his helmet off, his pale face turning bright red with anger.

" _Well?_ " No sooner had Sanford looked at Nyx again, did his eyes wander- (as they inevitably did whenever he looked at her) –and fall upon the blackened impact marks on her chest and her flank. "…Oh my god."

" _Non,_ they are not _serieux,_ " Nyx quickly stammered, placing a palm protectively over her breast. "Merely scratches."

"Those aren't _scratches,_ " Sanford growled like a dog, stepping over and ripping her claw free to examine the damage. "Jesus Christ, Nyx, you got shot? What happened? Who did it? I'll fuckin' kill 'em."

"I'm not one to form _hunches_ on the ball, but I'd say she already got the bastard." Hancock disparagingly glanced at the corpses. "Or _bitch._ It's a bitch, confirmed! Damn Assaultrons, and their feminine personality programming! Who the hell thought _that_ up?"

"Assaultron?" Sanford didn't even give Nyx time to explain herself, he slipped from her claws and stomped over to the corpses, ignoring the Radstag's body and leaning over the Assaultron's shattered form. " _Damn it._ Same group like the one I shot."

"Sanford, that disc that you discovered," Nyx stepped closer, wincing as the wounds on her chest flared. "we are being hunted because of it."

"I figured as much." Sanford huffed raggedly, spiraling around, and clicking his tongue as he noticed the scabbing detritus on her scales again. " _Christ, Nyx…_ " –He mumbled, fumbling in his rucksack for some Stimulant injections.

"Damn pansy-ass villains, sending out _henchmen_ to do a Democracy loving American's work!" Hancock ranted, the distinct squeaking of a nozzle cap being heard as he deftly worked his claw about his lower thruster ring. "Eat my piss, minion!"

" _Non!_ " Nyx snarled, a reptilian hiss drawling out from her throat as she leaned over Sanford's back, and snapped two of her taloned fingers with a scaly _crunch~!_ –sound. " _That_ is lunch!"

"The _Assaultron?_ " Hancock almost wheezed.

" _Non! Non non non,_ non, _usiner, the Radstag!_ " The Deathclaw grit her teeth as Sanford touched one of the blast craters on her chest, and stuck the needle of the Stimulant into its charred flesh. "… _fucking twit…_ " The reptile moaned from the resultant pain, and her horns produced a loud, bell-like **_thwack~!_** –as she buried her face in Sanford's pauldron exhaustively.

"Were you hit anywhere else?" Sanford took a second Stim out of another large wound and flicked away the empty needle, patting her arm as he watched the flesh slowly start to stitch itself together. "Nyx?"

" _Non._ " She muffled into the metal of his shoulder. Nyx quivered when Sanford brushed his fingers over one of the closing shot holes, the dead flesh and scales crumbling away like trailings of solid coal onto the ground below.

"You people make my internal patriotism _weep!_ " Hancock guffawed nearby. "What a world! Let's kill these people already and be done with it!"

"That's exactly what we're doing." Sanford snarled, turning on his robot with a hateful glare. " _Nobody_ shoots my fucking Deathclaw and gets away with it."

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-


	5. Chapter 5 - Jumped

**V**

 **Jumped**

* * *

The city was quiet mostly, save the faint whisper of the wind, and the occasional scattering of dust from a high ledge or rubble pile.

Old and blasted apartments clawed up at the sky like a series of mangled fingers, hopelessly trying to rip themselves free of some massive hand beneath the air, to shoot for the clouds above. The sun's glare played strangely off old automobiles and the sprawling, rectangular hulks of passenger buses. They passed one of the old monorail lines cutting over an avenue, where the railbridge had collapsed and spilled a three-car trolley into the pavement.

The air howled and garbage sifted. There wasn't the faintest sign of anything alive for what seemed like hours, at least, visibly. In terms of the naked eye, Boston City was devoid of life and barren.

Sanford and Hancock's scanners told them a much darker truth, however, and thus, they were not plagued with ignoble ignorance as they braved the dangers here.

In fact, right at this moment, despite the everpresent lack of _anything_ save rubble, shredded cars and blown out buildings; Sanford's suit was screaming bloody murder with the amount of pings popping up on his sensor screen.

 _Nine hundred and eighty six._

He still couldn't believe the count of local heartbeats and heat signatures. Most of them were underground, purely heat sigs, lacking the HBM tag that humans or large animals would net. These were most likely monstrous arthropods, the mutated denizens of the Old Earth that had persisted for generations in the haze of radioactive glamour.

Radscorpions, Radroaches, Mirelurks, Bloodbugs and Stingwings. The list was expansive, and they only got bigger and nastier as you followed it up. Sanford could remember a choice few encounters with things like that, especially in the old days when he didn't have the X-01 suit. Bloodbugs always bothered him the most. It was strange, because they certainly weren't the most horrible mutated beast one could encounter out here.

Radscorpions could melt your insides with their barbed stingers, Mirelurks would literally chop you into bits and feed you to their hatchlings, and Stingwings would swarm and kill you with tens of acidic doses from their tails.

They were all ferocious. But something about having your blood being sucked out just gave Sanford the heeby-jeebies. Bloodbugs were weak, and most of the time, when they tried to bite people, they couldn't stay on long enough to get more than an initial taste of their life fluids.

But they bothered him the most. Bloodbugs freaked Sanford the hell out. It was why he graced the city with the first crack of gunfire it had probably heard in a good while, what with all the calm out here.

 _Splat~!_ –went the giant mosquito's singed corpse. It fell from the sixth or so story off the flank of a smashed commercial tower, and terminated on the sidewalk with a repulsive, and wet spatter.

"Good aim, sir!" Hancock commented, watching as the dead insect landed amid a cluster of its fellows on the pavement. There had been a small flight of them, maybe ten or so. Sanford had seen them and had resorted to raking the wall left and right with his Laser rifle. The results hadn't been pretty for the bugs. They were just fine for the scavenger.

"I fuckin' hate those things." Sanford mumbled under his breath, switching the battery faces on his gun. "At least there's some action."

"You're telling me!" Hancock snapped, glaring with all his lenses at the steaming corpses of the dog-sized insects. "All this prancing around without _anything_ to shoot! Technically, you've bore me insult, Monkey-Man! Those could've been _my_ kills!"

"Stop bitching." Sanford remarked as he stepped away, and turned to Nyx, who remained silent throughout the exchange. "How you doing?"

" _Bien_." The reptile sighed, her golden eyes scanning the sides of the street with caution. "How much farther away might we be?"

"Helios is just past that street there." Sanford pointed down the road, around the flipped girth of a rusting, scorched tanker truck. "High time we found out who this bastard is, huh?"

"Affirmative!" Hancock said. "Only _I_ get to shoot at the lizard! If there's anyone who's gonna' pop a cap in her Bordelais ass it's gotta' be _me-_ "

The Deathclaw's resultant growl was the least pervasive sound eating up the air in the following seconds. Sanford didn't even have time to blink before a large, bladed claw clapped over the top of Hancock's round chassis body, and hurled the robot through a nearby store window.

"- _Man-down~!_ " –Came a garbled scream through Sanford's helmet uplink.

 _Crash~!_ –went something inside the building. Luckily for Hancock, the window was already broken, so the flight had met with no resistance until its termination. Still, judging by the sound of breaking glass and tumbling mounds of debris, the landing couldn't have been pleasant.

" _That,_ was for the skank commentary, _usiner._ " Nyx snorted, and spat a wad of Deathclaw-gob on the street in the robot's direction. "Rust in pieces."

"He called you a _skank?_ " Sanford blew an amused sound through his lips. "That's actually kinda' hysteri-"

The scavenger was thankful the helmet hid his facial features. She was able to silence him with a single, inhuman glare. He was used to the predatory look she'd get when she was feeling frisky, but this expression of foretelling his cold, imminent and painful demise was off his own charts of a happy moment.

" _Ah-hmm._ That was very wrong of him to say." Sanford corrected after a long pause.

"You expressed to me in times past that this place was once a center of commerce?" Nyx flicked her tail, stalking back towards the direction they'd been headed.

"… _Uhhhhh-_ yeah." Sanford tore himself quickly from the window she'd flung Hancock through. Behind him, he could hear the robot stringing together a long cacophony of vulgarity and insults directed at parts of who he could only assume was Nyx's mother. "Helios Shopping Center; one of the biggest malls in Boston for a long time. I used to go there when I was a child."

" _Incroyable,_ " Nyx smiled a little bit, an amused puff emerging from her snout. "I do not mean offense when I say I cannot imagine you as a hatchling."

"A _hatchling._ " Sanford chuckled, hoisting his gun over his pauldron. "I dunno', I guess I can't really picture you as little either."

" _Non?_ "

"Nope." The scavenger shook his head. "I mean, simply put; being _little,_ and tiny, and helpless, is so against your image."

" _Mm._ " The Deathclaw hummed, intrigued. "What _is_ my image with you, Sanford?"

"Your image," Sanford grinned, nudging her long arm. "-why, one of power so great, you could rip off my legs."

"- _That sounds like an idea!_ " Hancock screamed from behind them. Nyx rolled her eyes at the shattered moment when the robot zipped beside her. " _Hey,_ Godzilla's Mother-in-Law! I found a present in there for ya'!"

" _Usiner,_ might the day ever come where you-" Nyx never finished her sentence, for a half-filled spray-can bottle ricocheted off her scaly forehead with a loud, metallic _clank~!_ –noise, and bounced by her cloven feet.

The impact had to hurt, because the Deathclaw gave off this wheezing, serpentine hiss. She rocked back on her heels and even butted into Sanford a little bit.

"-my _nose~!_ " Nyx whined femininely, clutching her snout with tender, bladed fingers.

"- _Eat my carbon-fiber shillings, you deranged mother fucker!_ " Hancock yelled, his thruster flaring as it took him in a swift dive for the end of the street.

" _Usiner~!_ " Nyx roared at the top of her lungs, her tail thrashing madly like a whip, her talons extending out with slippery kicks of chitin to scale. " _I'm going to recycle all of you~!_ "

"Holy _Shitballs-!_ In the name of Democracy; _run for your lives!_ "

"Wait a minute!" Sanford called out, but he was already too late.

With a vibrant cry of metal, and ignited fuel solvents, the street was bathed in a blackening cloud of soot that belched from Hancock's underside. The robot careened high in the air, catapulted by his own self-ignition, and vanished over the lip of a rooftop overhead.

"God _damn it,_ Han'…" Sanford cursed lowly, craning backwards to stare in shock at the now empty sky. "-C'mon, let's see if we can find where he landed- _Nyx?_ "

The scavenger's jaw dropped.

He finished seeing the Deathclaw's heels as they kicked dust from the rim of the rooftop, her tail flicked once in her passage and she was gone. He could see the claw marks up the bricks where she had climbed.

"- _Usiner~!_ " –Came in a distant howl of rage upon the air, followed by a crazed glaze of Hancock's fading laughter.

" _Guys~!_ " Sanford called, and started rapidly pressing buttons in his suit's internal HUD. " _Hancock!_ Come in! Where are you? Stop!"

It was no use. Hancock must have silenced his com unit, or, he simply wasn't listening. Sanford stomped the pavement in anger, actually cracking it underneath the suit's heel.

 _This is just what I need._

"We're not supposed to get separated…" He mumbled, brandishing his Laser rifle from the hip, he glared at the end of the road, towards the direction of Helios. "…God damn it."

 ** _SIGNATURE DETECTED_**

Sanford quirked a brow at his suit's helm display, and his eyes immediately whipped to the little text bubble popping on his map.

Out of all the signatures for pests and common wildlife infesting Boston City, one newer arrival stuck out predominantly.

It was a robotics signature.

 _That's close._ Sanford gasped, and he whipped around on his heel, aiming the reticule for his gun skyward, and to the west. _That's right over my-_

-Just a glance of it. Sanford stared at the nearby rooftop with wide eyes, and he caught just the ending shadow of whatever had been standing at its ledge as it retreated. The signal faded, but didn't disappear.

 _Oh shit._

"Hancock?" Sanford wired, not taking his aim off the building behind his position. "Hancock, you and Nyx need to stop right now. We're not alone. Hancock? _Hancock?_ "

Mother of hell, had his friend gone insane?

 _Why the hell am I asking a question I already know the answer to?_

-But Hancock had limits. He never took things so far that it risked all their lives. At least, not _usually._

This wasn't good.

Sanford backed up towards an alleyway to cut through, and he advanced in heavy-footed steps towards where his companions had run off to.

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

The Wasteland was not a place to be alone for most folks, and the dangers manifesting in that fact were ten-fold when walking around the city.

Boston had become an interweaving web and maze of intersecting killing fields, trapping dead ends and murder slots. There were too many prepared positions, too many monster dens, and too little room to maneuver around with.

Sanford had engaged in some form of combat nearly every time he had chanced the city's inner sections. A lot of the times, one could easily get away with a quick patrol or sweep in the fringes and downtown areas without much trouble. But in the commercial and industrial districts, and even outside the immediate aura of Diamond City, things tended to get pretty hairy, pretty quickly.

Super Mutants were always a concern, but so were Raiders. The city outside of Diamond was always locked in that eternal turf-war between tens of underlords who had carved out like fiefs for themselves in the ruins. Granted, Sanford had crisscrossed the city so many times and had taken out so many of the threats here that the action was dwindling. But still, reduced or not, Boston City was not a place to fool around.

It was unfortunate for him that Hancock just didn't understand that logic.

- _Scratch that._

That was inaccurate to say. Hancock understood the logic behind caution; he just didn't give a shit.

Tracking him and Nyx was easy, however. They were on his scanner board, and nothing was taking them off of it. Sanford stormed through cramped alleys, passed crumbled brick walls and hurried into sun-lit open spaces across streets.

 _If everything wasn't such a mess, it'd be a beautiful day today._

The scavenger breathed as he maintained a steady jog. He kept an eye on his scanner overlay, minding Nyx's signature, Hancock's icon, and the mysterious robotics sigs on the fringes of their aura.

His blood pressure was rising. It was the trepidation about what was happening here, and there _was_ something happening here, outside of Hancock's antics. There wasn't just one robot stalking him anymore. Now there were two.

 _Three,_ he corrected grimly, his eyes hanging over a third symbol that materialized from the proverbial fog at the edges of his suit's home-symbol. _Guaranteed to be Assaultrons._

Whoever this person or group was that wanted them dead seemed to have a thing for that model. Black colored Assaultrons with cloaking and that skull symbol on their foreheads. It was pretty high tech stuff. The elite nature of these would be assassins still had him worried.

"Hancock?" He grunted into the suit's com connection, looping around the hood of a car chassis. _We're headed away from Helios._ "Hancock, you gotta' cut this out. We have a really big problem and you're gonna' get us all-"

Sanford's speech cut away for a surprised gasp. He hadn't even heard the gunshot before the pavement right beside his boot kicked from the bullet's impact.

The armored scavenger screeched to a halt, digging gravel rinds into the street as the servo-joints in his limbs forced the suit's weight to bottom out. He spun to the left, fell to a knee, and aimed down the sight of his rifle.

"- _Wha' kinda' shot was dat?_ " –Came a faint, and gruff voice in the distance.

 _Son of a bitch,_ Sanford felt a bead of cold sweat run down his forehead inside his helmet.

" _I was aimin' fer' the tin-can-man's foot!_ "

" _You're a waste-a-skin, Gungi!_ "

" _Someone. Shoot. It. Pwease._ "

It was like listening to a room of bickering school children. Big, green, bulbous and freakishly muscular school children, who all had attitude issues and violent mental instabilities.

Sanford couldn't tell initially from naked sight alone how many of the Super Mutants were inside the old storefront, but judging by how many of them were hanging out the building's windows in the addition to the one who'd shot at him, he'd say there were plenty to go around for a risky encounter.

 _I don't have time for this._

The scavenger didn't even bother with a potshot. There was no use. He was out in the open, and if one of those fuckers had a missile launcher or Gatling Gun; he was screwed.

More bullets bounced off the street. Sanford felt his arm jerk as a trio of bullets smacked harmlessly off his gauntlet.

 _Getting lazy in this thing._

Sanford almost grinned as he dove behind a smashed ambulance chassis, rumbling the earth with a deafening _crash~!_ –of reinforced steel to concrete.

 _I would never have just run out into a street when I was younger and out here._

Sanford Tobs reasoned, as he switched the scope back onto his rifle's spine, that he would make it his personal mission to disassemble his robot once this was all over.

 _I'll kill that stupid idiot for this._

"- _He behind carr!_ " –One of the Mutants faintly cried, its barbaric, rugged voice crackling like a bundle of gravel being crushed underneath iron. " _Shoot carr!_ "

" _Wat a carr again?_ "

" _Gungi! Stupid man!_ "

Sanford aimed over the ambulance's scorched hood, found a window and its exposed occupant, and yanked down on the trigger.

The rifle kicked, producing that oh-so-familiar _pop~!_ –sound in a repeated train of noise. Crimson bolts lashed over the street, peppered the plaster of the window sill, and hit the Super Mutant inside.

Sanford saw his bolts tear off the creature's left arm and eviscerate its pectoral. Seeing the Mutant twist on his heels like a ballerina and drop was enough of an incentive to make the man voice a victorious- ' _Ha!'_ –as he ducked back into cover.

 _Score one, you green freaks._

" _Holy crap! He got Nill!_ "

" _Stupid. Man~!_ "

 _Nill can eat my ass in hell,_ Sanford winced when bullets started to clap into the ambulance behind him. _Time to move._

"Hancock? I know you're out there somewhere, playing with Nyx, like a good robotic dog," The scavenger grit his teeth, his heels tapping into the street as he saw a vantage point, and prepared to sprint towards it. "-but I just want you to know; there will be retribution for this. Almighty hell of retribution, ya' hear? You bastard."

Sanford stormed out into the street. He twisted his hipline around and sprayed the building from the hip, firing until his battery was half-depleted, and he made it to the building corner he sought.

Diving into its protection, Sanford shouldered against the wall and breathed, turning his helmet back when rounds spat dust in his face, hitting his new form of cover in his stead.

 _One of them at least is a good shot,_ Sanford shook his head, switching battery faces on his gun. _How many are we dealing with here?_

He checked his scans briefly, still seeing the robotic signatures from before. They were clustered to the east, hanging back, and not engaging on either his or the Mutant's behalf.

On the subject of the Mutants, there were eight of them, not including the one he'd shot. Eight green monster men to kill. He'd have to do this carefully.

 _We've dealt with them before,_ the scavenger tried to cheer himself up as he aimed around his corner cover. _We've got this, I mean-_

Sanford's eyes went large.

"- _Mother-!_ " –He couldn't finish his sentence. The man tore from the wall and sprinted down into the alley behind him. A second later, and the miniature comet he'd beheld finished whipping across the street. The entire corner he'd been hiding behind vanished in a bursting plume of soot and smoke. Bricks and chunks of concrete bounced and rolled everywhere, and flames licked the ground in a choice few strips.

"-Mother… _fucker._ " Sanford heaved, crouched nearby, he heard the almost musical pitter-patter of pebbles bouncing off his suit's plating as he knelt in the smog. "-There's some cover at least."

He rose and strode through the smoke, switching his helmet's lenses to a proper filter to pierce the veil.

 _My friend with the bazooka;_ Sanford picked out the Mutant's yellow outline in his blue-tinted vision above. Linking with the scope, he lined the crosshairs through the building's window, and compressed the trigger for three seconds. _Time out for you._

The smog and soot prevented a clear confirmation of the kill, but judging by the way the glowing, yellow and muscular person in his vision twisted this way and that, and collapsed, he could say with confidence that he'd hit something important.

Bullets whipped through the smoke, but it was so thick and dense that the Mutants couldn't see exactly where he was. Sanford sidestepped, knelt, and fired through another window, his suit's modifier filters enabling him to negate the difficult smoke.

 _Three's the charm._

The Mutant's head popped like a balloon. Some of the fragments and shreds of material cast from the hit were highlighted yellow too, just like the rest of him. It was like watching a glowing person made of golden gel splat and come apart like a jelly jar being thrown against a wall.

 _That all you got?_

Sanford advanced alongside the ribcage of a bus as he gained proximity to the building's face. It was only two stories, and the Mutants had nowhere to hide. He could hear them down the street, barking at each other with all kinds of guttural nonsense, and threats about how they were going to eat him, or crush him, or a plethora of other unsavory fates.

 _We'll see about that,_ Sanford growled. _First I'll kill all of you, and then I'll kill Hancock._

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

Though he should've known that once he'd expended his airborne jumps, he'd never be able to outrun her on thruster-power alone, Hancock did have to admit that despite that foolish decision, all here was worth the effort it endowed.

At least, it had been before she caught him.

"- _Looks like the shoe's on the other misshapen foot now!_ " The robot cackled as he zipped down the street. " _-How's the view from back there? I hope ya' can see my American spirit_ while _eating my contrails! Ha-haaa~! For Liberty-!_ "

Nyx released a roaring wail that wouldn't jave been outside the normal vocalizations of one of her more feral cousins. The Deathclaw vaulted on all fours over the smashed remains of an overhead highway sign and aluminum _tin~!_ –upon the air, and drop-kicked him when she got close enough.

 ** _Wham~!_** –the impact would've been bone-shattering to a creature of flesh and blood. But Hancock was tougher than those squishy pansies that this world was so overrun with. It merely just put a dent in his armor, and there were already a _million_ dents before that one.

It was the statement of being tossed around like a ragdoll that royally pissed the Mr. Gutsy off. So, as he bounced like a rogue soccerball down the street, his bounding statements were riddled with speech conjured as a result of his enraged demeanor.

"- _YouuulLLll-ppaaAAA-yyy-Heeell-FOORRRRrr—ThissSS-!_ " –An old street-cleaner vehicle bucked as Hancock terminated his tumble into its flank. Plates buckled and it scraped against the street from the force of the impact. The robot sank down and clattered to the pavement, giving off a resounding racket that mimicked the song of a bag of tin cans being dropped. "- _Agh-! I think you dented my circuit-coils, you Scalie Dyke!_ "

" _Vous etes hors de controle._ " The Deathclaw vented, stomping towards the downed machine with vengeance burning in her golden eyes. "This, is the _last_ straw, and this I promise on my blood!"

"Oh _boo-hoo,_ so the little newt got bopped on her fat, ugly nose!" Hancock shot off the street as if nothing had even happened. With the vigor of a cartoon character, having been kicked, thrown and smashed into a vehicle, the robot was back up and levitating anyway. It almost stupefied Nyx enough for her to pause.

But she didn't.

"This rivalry, between you and I?" The Deathclaw hissed, her talons flexing from her fingers, her armored back hunching as he prepared to leap. "It is too long."

Nyx swept her tongue over her fangs, and placed her palms on the ground between her knees.

"It is _fatigant._ "

"Nope, see, that's where you're wrong, spunky," Hancock's buzzsaw whirred as he pointed it at her. " _you're_ the fat one, not me! All those years of 'Nam strengthened this G.I.! Ha-haa!"

"You were never _in_ the Vietnam War, you aren't an American soldier, and you can't even _get_ fat!" Nyx almost sobbed, unable to comprehend the robot's mania as she ranted at him. "I seek only to put you out of your misery. That is all! _Usiner,_ by all that is good in this horrible world, see how I am trying to _help you?_ "

" _Help me?_ All ya' did from day one was screw shit up for me, tootse!" The Mr. Gutsy snapped. "You rolled in, tried to kill Sanford, and now, I can't even get a word in edgewise anymore! _You ruined my pre-teen badassery duo of amazingness fantasy!_ You convoluted bitch-in-heat!"

" _I'm going to kill you._ " Nyx snarled, and the ground quivered as she leapt off her own heels. "- _Stay still~!_ "

"Like a dumb, cross-eyed frog? _Ha!_ I think not!" Hancock weaved westward, zipping right between the swipes of her claws with an expertly placed dodge. "- _Ha-haaa~!_ Looks like the _Han's_ too slippery for ya', Gator-Biscuit!"

"- _And your insults~!_ " Nyx wailed, spiraling around and performing a gutting swipe with his index and middle fingers. "None of them even make an ounce of _sense!_ "

"Of course they don't, you dumb animal!" Hancock cackled, zipping left, right, and avoiding the two subsequent underhand and overhand strikes from her claws. "Angry little Commie' beasties like you were never meant to understand American-Age speech! Do you know what it's like to live under the same roof as some bug-eyed Godzilla wannabe' like you? You think _I'm_ maddening? Holy toilet-paper streamers!"

"- _Shut. Up~!_ "

A cluster of newspaper distributor boxes were ripped from their moorings by a colossal swipe of her claws. Hancock weaved low and the Deathclaw's bore hands passed by in a doubled pair right over his chassis, impaling the boxes and tearing them free of their bolted bases.

"Be careful, you might chip a nail!" Hancock scoffed by her flank. "Let's not overt the presses here! _You_ started it!"

"I started _nothing!_ " Nyx defended with a high-pitched tone of indignant offense. She leapt backwards through the dust kicked from the boxes' destruction, wriggled her talons at her flanks, and prepared to leap at the robot a second time. "I merely sought to end the _endless_ torrent of _merde_ constantly spewing from you! I must relent, _usiner,_ I have heard of the Fountain of Youth; I have never heard of a _Fountain of Shit!_ "

"The lizard just slapped me with a cheap, folklore based punchline!" Hancock screamed. "You heartless _bitch~!_ "

Nyx tackled the robot in a quick flurry of blurred scales, drab metal and slashing claws. The two of them landed onto the pavement with a thunderous report, steel screeching, Nyx howling in rage. It was that moment that the reptile came closest to ending things. She was merely seconds away from having the vulnerably placed robot reduced to scrap.

She was close to finally ending this nightmare of his existence, that she could taste it.

-Then, she heard the distant racket. The same distant racket that chimed into her anger-fueled thoughts, and reminded her of something more important.

" _Go on, you fat, fly-eating salamander! Gimme' all ya' got!_ " Hancock ranted, struggling, as his buzzsaw whirred and screamed in the air, pinned at the joint to the street by one of her claws."I don't need Clarice to do you in! _I'll chop you up and turn you into Liberty-Mystery-Meat for the boys on the Front!_ "

" _Sanford._ " Nyx was looking north, her snout piqued like that of a bloodhound's to a strong scent of quarry. She could hear the faint cracks and reports on the air, some of them repeating in long, drawn-out efforts.

 _Gunfire._

"Son of a mis-wired Chinese antenna outlet!" Hancock gasped, lowering his weapons, despite her pinning him to the street. "Look at all of those heartbeat sigs! Sanford's at it all alone! I just _knew_ he still had that badassness in him!"

"You _imbecile,_ " The Deathclaw hissed, lowering her chin and directing a burning stare down to him. "we stand in the city, a zone of risks, and you _risk everything_ with your incessant _comportement._ "

"Can you blame me?" Hancock rebuffed. "A year ago, it was just me and the San-of-the-Ford! We were the pals of ages! _He the Peanut-Butter to my Jelly, for Christ's sake!_ "

"Stop _talking._ " The Deathclaw shook her head.

"-Why would I ever listen to you when your sanity's at stake?"

"That is an _excellente question._ " Nyx growled, leaning her snout closer to the machine's raised ocu-lenses. "Is that was this? _Childish jealousy?_ "

"He was my C.O. and now some stupid _lizard_ gets all his attention!" Hancock barked. "Do you even see how _screwed up_ it all is, or do I have to break it down in plebian terms? _Who has to deal with losing their compadres' to a monster?_ "

"Monster." Nyx parroted, snorting, as if something had been caught in one of her nostrils. "I should expect no less of _insulte_ from the likes of you, and for some reason _still_ does your ignorance prove painful."

" _Touche,_ Nyx." Hancock's speech stilled her for a good while; as it wasn't common for him to address her by name. In fact, Nyx couldn't remember the machine _ever_ doing so in the past.

 _I suppose today is a special occasion after all,_ she licked the space on her nose where the spray-can had hit her, where it was still a bit tender. _His offenses are only stacking._

"I do not _hate_ you, _usiner._ " The Deathclaw admitted out of the blue.

"Well I totally, perpendicularly and _extravagantly_ think you suck balls!" Hancock ranted, his thruster kicking sparks as he struggled on the pavement beneath her claws. "-But where's the double-edged sword in that, eh? It's not like you've got as much on this end as I do!"

" _Everything_ close to me is ' _On that end'._ " She quoted angrily. "Sanford is in trouble, and I do not have any more patience for this."

"Ya' had patience enough to chase me this far." He pointed out.

"Be quiet."

Nyx was just letting up on her grip, when she felt a sudden, and jolting pain stab into her thigh. The Deathclaw yipped and jumped clear off of Hancock, landing unsteadily on her heels like a drunken cat.

" _Que diable se passé-t-il…?_ " Nyx- wide eyed –pinched at a peculiarity jutting from her leg, her mumbles wavering, and uncertain.

"- _Ha!_ Take a long, nice look at my tactical ingenious!" Hancock zipped off the ground in a slight devil of dust, and flew up to the appalled reptile with an air of eagerness. "Utilizing my artistic sense of distraction, _I've caught you with your proverbial pants down! Ha-haaa~!_ "

" _Usiner…?_ " Nyx teetered, her arms raised to steady herself, her heart racing at the uncertainty of what was occurring. Still, wavering or not, she snarled angrily when the robot pinched the distinct, silvery dart that was sticking out of her flesh, and pulled it free to hold between them in his claw.

"My dart gun told you what-for, Lizard-Buns!" The Mr. Gutsy guffawed, twisting the hollow, needled capsule in his grasp. "It's all about the- …."

Hancock paused stupidly, his ocu-lenses focusing on the dart now solely. It took a moment, but gears ground, and realizations came to pass. He saw that perhaps this time around only, had he spoken completely out of context.

"- _wait a minute_ ," The robot grumbled. "-I don't have a dart gun."

"- _Agh~!_ " Nyx yelped, clasping at her chest. The Deathclaw stumbled back, bladed fingers wrapping around and quivering over a second dart. It appeared comically small in her clasp, vanishing as a flicker of reflective silver whilst she plucked it free and threw it away. " _Usiner! Look!_ "

"I see 'em!" Hancock would've followed his sensors anyhow, but Nyx's pointing claw was all the more of an express option to finding the angle of their attackers.

It was just a brief visage on the top of a nearby rooftop, brief enough, but sustained, for Hancock to start aiming and firing his Plasma Gun like mad.

The street lit a sickly green, and blobs of incinerating energy stabbed out towards the building.

"-Nobody shoots the alligator except for _me_ and gets away with it!" Hancock ranted, draining his battery, floating away from Nyx even as she teetered and stumbled after him. "Come back here and face your deaths like men! I'll end your faces! _Rip out your nuts and feed 'em to the Russians!_ Face me-!"

One moment, Hancock was his normal, violent self, and the next, he wasn't.

Now, Nyx was certainly not as technically adept as Sanford was. Sanford could identify probably most if not all of the current weapon systems being used out here in the Wasteland. But she knew enough to process what she was seeing, and understand the depth of what was occurring.

The device that hit Hancock looked very similar to the darts that had been used on her seconds ago, except, this munitions type was by far designed with mechanical prey in mind, and not organic.

Where the darts pierced flesh and delivered their toxins, _this thing_ pierced Hancock's chassis right at the front, and _zapped_ him.

 ** _Bzzzkkk~!_** –Nyx had to shield her face from the brightness of the flash. Hancock looked like a cartoon character that had just touched a live electrical wire. He was almost arachnid, splayed in midair, with pulses of destructive, blue lightning coursing up and down his limbs and chassis.

" _Usiner!_ " Nyx called out.

Hancock fell as a steaming, blackened heap onto the street, clattering against the pavement, trailing soot, sparking, and unmoving.

 _Could life not be so horrifying for more than a few weeks?_

Nyx snarled as she lumbered over, and knelt over the robot's body. She felt another sting on her shoulder, and merely flicked the dart out without so much as a glance.

 _I must reach Sanford._

"… _Oh, usiner…_ " Nyx slurred, her vision blurring, and her limbs feeling impossibly heavy. The Deathclaw scooped her talons under the robot's form, and hefted his burnt mass into her arms. "-do you see how… the world… has a sense of humor…?"

She was only doing this for Sanford. If it were up to her, she told herself, she'd leave the Mr. Gutsy and make a run for it solo.

At least, that was what she told herself.

 _Stupid machine._

Nyx didn't even glare at her assailants, andthough whatever she had been shot with diminished her speed significantly, she still managed to take off in a heavy-heeled run towards the gunfire, her tail draping lazily behind her, her eyes continuously battling her for a field of encroaching dark.

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

" _Gungi!_ He inside da' buildin'! Use the Platta-Board!"

"…Uhhhh… W-What the Platta-Board?"

" _Dat' fing!_ Dat' fing by you foot! Wit the nails and the hurty!"

" _Oh,_ this fing-"

-Sanford shot Gungi in the head, and sent the Super Mutant's headless, blood-fountaining corpse careening out the window he'd been leaning against.

 _Fuckin' idiot,_ the scavenger thought as his rifle ran dry, and he snarled in agitation down at its spine. _Fuckin' gun._

"-You killed _Gungi~!_ " The other Super Mutant in the upper story room screamed, his green, underbitten face alight with childish shock and appall. "Stupid man! _Stupid man~!_ "

"Buddy, it sounds like I did you a favor!" Sanford winced when the Super Mutant pointed his Assault Rifle right at him in the room's doorframe, and pulled the trigger. The trigger clicking emptily hastened his movements. "Take it with some grace, huh?"

" _Daaaaaggghhhh~!_ " The green monster screamed, tossing his gun away like it was a broken toy, he ran over to the other window in a series of thundering, heavy footsteps.

Casting some detritus about on the floor, the Super Mutant picked up a drab, reflective bar of metal from the floor, duct-taped with bits of shrapnel, construction nails and what looked like railroad spikes.

It was a lead pipe that was almost as long as Sanford was tall. Even in the armor, it made the scavenger go wide-eyed.

 _Holy shit._

Sanford experienced a classic moment of what he called ' _Battle-Panic'_ –and even though, he'd been down this violent, risky road a million times; he _still_ had moments where his reaction timing was quite poor.

It was a trademark of being a soldier, he knew. Not even seasoned veterans had it all down a hundred percent of the time, and when the need for quick thinking came-a-calling, _everyone_ in this line of work had their moments of royally fucking up.

Thus, the scavenger found himself fiddling with the battery-face on his gun like a fumbling child. He couldn't get to shooting again quick enough before the hollering, massive Mutant was on top of him.

 _Shit!_

Sanford grit his teeth, dropped his own gun, and brought up his palms out of instinct.

 ** _Clang~!_** –he caught the massive lead pipe in his armored palms, right as the Mutant brought in a devastating, two-handed swipe from the side.

Sparks flew and metal crunched. For a moment, the scavenger and the Mutant were locked together, arms quivering, faces drawn in taught, wild snarls. The Super Mutant was truly ugly this close up. It's green, heavy forehead almost angled over and threatened to swallow up its tiny, yellow eyes. Its teeth- (for what few were left) were uneven and canine-like. Rusty, improperly applied stitches ran down in an infected sprawl down the Mutant's jaw, where they had been used to seal some ancient wound and had never been removed.

 _Jesus Christ,_ Sanford suit groaned metallically as he slowly, but inexorably forced the Mutant's pipe lower and lower from the chin of his helmet. _I'm almost forgetting that this is all Hancock's fault, that little shit._

" _Kill – you-!_ " The Mutant snarled in broken English, spittle flying through and around his ruined teeth. "- _Kill –you – hard~!_ "

 _Get in line, shitbag._

Sanford grunted, and ripped the pipe and the arms wielding it to the side. The Mutant hollered and reeled westward. Sanford planted his armored heel into and shattered his hip, hearing the pelvis and what he could assume was a rib or two cracking over the din of the fighting.

 _Once you get over the muscles, they break just the same._

Sanford cried out angrily, and he battered into the Mutant, using his suit's throw-weight to smash into the creature's vulnerable flank.

 _Lemme' just take out the trash._

He drove the screaming, bellowing Mutant back into the room from whence he came, the two of them stamping through piles of garbage and bits of rubble. The lead pipe flew from the Mutant's fingers, and for just a second, Sanford recognized the expression of horror born on the monster's face.

 _Yeah,_ the scavenger grit his teeth, and kept his heels down as the Mutant's calves bumped into the window sill. _You know what's going down. You._

"- _Stuuupidddd-maaaaannnn-~!_ " –The Mutant landed on his head. It was a result garnered from the mess of a ripe tomato spattering against a wall. The body clambered, twitched, and lye down on the street, still as a board, and green and red all over.

"…Do you people _ever_ shut up?" Sanford breathed, wriggling his fingers into fists as he stood triumphantly in the building's second story window. _What a trip._

The room was already a mess given the amount of trash and detritus that the Mutants had accumulated camping out here. But now, it was littered with a quad of twisted bodies, two of them headless from eviscerating bolts gifted by Sanford's Laser Rifle.

 _Hancock and Nyx didn't even show up to help me._

Sanford's anger failed to keep itself in check. His gauntlets creaked metallically as he clenched his fists, and stalked back inside the bloody, messy room with a lumbering enragement.

 _They're both unbelievable._

Sanford nudged a Mutant's corpse out of his way, stepped around it, and picked up his gun from where it was lying on the floor.

 _Nyx is better than that._

He knew Hancock wasn't, but, even that statement was a dark one to be had.

Hancock never took things this far. Purposefully sitting out of a firefight with a bunch of Mutants? Even _if_ Han' was being an ass, he would never give up an opportunity to shoot and kill things. After all, where a painter loved to paint, and a singer loved to sing; Hancock loved to _kill._ It was his art. At least, in a way that _he_ viewed.

"Han'? Sanford here, 'cause, ya' know, who else would it be?" Sanford belatedly switched the battery faces on his gun, stalking around one of the headless Mutants at his feet. "I just want you to know, wherever you are; that I'm very much _still alive,_ and I'm going to fucking kill you when I-"

Sanford cut himself off and stared at his helmet's internal scan screen.

"… _Oh my god._ " He mumbled, and the room shivered as he stomped over to the window sill.

He saw them across the street. There they were, Nyx, and whatever was left of Hancock.

The Deathclaw was teetering. She was lumbering, and shifting back and forth like a drunk. In her clawed hands was a blackened pile of sparking, soot-belching scrap metal that he knew to be his best friend.

Sanford didn't know which name to scream out. He wanted to scream both of them out, but for some reason, his mouth was refusing to work.

The scavenger almost drooled on himself inside the helm. He gasped, breathed heavily, and was about to move when his suit's scanners started blaring.

 ** _MULTIPLE SIGNALS DETECTED; ROBOTICS. ROBOTICS._**

Sanford's jaw dropped.

The robotic signatures he'd been picking up were back, and they had brought friends.

They now numbered in the tens. They were coming from multiple directions.

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-


	6. Chapter 6 - Back to Bare Bones

**VI**

 **Back to Bare Bones**

* * *

There were very few sights that Sanford Tobs remembered as having instilled such cold, unadulterated feelings of horror into his breast. He wasn't old by far, but he'd been around awhile, and he could still say to this day that what he saw through the window of that building was one of most frightening things he had _ever_ seen.

He remembered when he and his mother and father were delving beneath the ground, entering the Vault years ago. He remembered the blinding plume from the ICBM landing nearby, and he remembered the heat, the wind, the _horror_ of that.

He remembered when he had first seen a Ghoul, during his early years in the Wasteland. He remembered it had been in an old colonial house. He remembered that he had looked under a dining room table, and that there had been a pair of soulless, hungering and yellow eyes staring back at him from the dark.

He remembered when Nyx had been kidnapped by the Institute. He remembered that pitting feeling of dread.

What was happening in the street right now reminded him of all those things, because the emotions flooding into his chest right now were indescribable, and terrible.

All at once, his Deathclaw collapsed. She fell over, heaping onto the street like a large, scaly mound of muscle and armor. Her arms- extended out to the building he was in –flew upwards, and Hancock's blackened, raggedy chassis was hurled in a rolling, clanking report onto the ground ahead of her.

Sanford didn't even have time to call out either of their names. Like vultures that had been patiently spiraling over a dying beast; their assailants descended.

And they came from _everywhere._

Sanford saw them, black-painted humanoid visages that appeared on top of roofs, from alleyways, and down sideroads. They walked unsteadily on conglomerate legs, snapped at the air with serrated, robotic claws, and sliced at the space in front of themselves with whirring buzzsaw attachments.

They were machines, like Hancock, but models that Sanford could never even have dreamed of.

He saw one of the Frabkenstein-esque' creatures sprint down the street, right past the storefront of his building. It possessed the rounded hull of a Mr. Gutsy robot, and yet from the bottom of its chassis sprouted a pair of triple-jointed, steel and rusty _legs._ Six arms grew like twisting plant vines from the sides of its mangled, bolted body, each tipped with a claw, or a buzzsaw, or what looked like Laser Gun attachments.

It was an army of _Junkers;_ robots assembled from spare parts from multiple models!

There were tens of them! Tens and tens and-

" _-No~!_ " Sanford screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice booming via the vox grille in the face of his helmet, it echoed across the surrounding blocks, heavy, and metallic.

Some of the robotic horrors were stilled by his announcement of presence. They skidded to abstentious halts on shanty legs, or whirred to stillness on reversing hover-motors. Strange garbles of electronic nonsense reverberated between unseen squad cohesion, reticules locked on the man in the building window above.

A laser bolt flickered out from one of them, and slapped into Sanford's shoulderpad with a kick of sparks and a flash of light.

Snarling like an animal at the assault, Sanford rode the kick back, steadied himself, and tore his energized blade from his hip.

 _No time to head downstairs,_ the scavenger lifted an armored boot, and pressed into the brick sill of the window as his foes closed in on the storefront below, a shifting, thin carpet of steel and electronics. _One way quicker ticket._

-With a deafening cry, Sanford lifted himself past his own pelvis level, and jumped out of the sill for the street below, whistling, as his suit caused him to fall with a speed of a dropped bomb.

 ** _Crash~!_** –the street cracked, and chunks of dislodged cement cascaded around the man's armored heels. The fall had been almost weightless and without sensation. Sanford's mind was drowning in adrenaline and manic action, all for the drive to reach his incapacitated companions.

"- _Nyx! Hancock!_ " Sanford cried, grimacing as laser fire and bullets tore up the air. "- _I'm coming!_ "

The robotic horrors fell on him as a singular mob. Gutsy chassis with legs, Protectrons with strange, insectoid torsos, and Assaultrons with mismatched heads and arms assaulted him, swinging with saws, claws, blades and in some cases, duct-taped machetes and sharpened strips of metal.

Laser fire licked off of Sanford's cuirass, scorching the metal and flinging harshly lit sparks. He ignored the warning claxons inside his helmet, and with a terrible roar did he fall upon his seemingly innumerable foes.

 ** _Crash~!_** –one of the robots was separated at the hip. Sanford slashed his crimson cutlass back around from the first kill, and soon an Assaultron's head was spinning away to his west. He shouldered the body to ruin, ducked as a buzzsaw screamed over the back of his skull, and turned around and mowed down three more with a hip-aimed spray of his gun in his other hand.

The robots piled and surrounded him, their feet clanging against the street, the guns (where they possessed them) barking and flashing, their melee-weapons whizzing and screaming in sporadic slashes and stabs.

 _Too many._

Sanford grit his teeth as a claw clamped down over his gauntlet's wrist, the powered joints crushing into the reinforced synthetic of his suit, causing it to groan and screech.

 _Focus; remember every part of you, even the fingers, even the feet._

Sanford's heart pounded and he sweat from the exertion, until the inside of his suit stank from the sheer volume of perspiration. He weaved left, letting a spinning drill blade slice frighteningly close to his helmet's chin in a near miss. He arced his gun to one side and lashed out with his foot. The robot vanished in a spine-snapping kick to the street, his rifle flared and scythed down several of the assailants to his flank.

 _God damn it._

Sanford didn't even process the pain, but he did indeed process the blood. One of the Junkers tore free from the joint in his suit almost as quickly as it had first found it. The blade sticking from its arm trailed a crimson, dissipating road of globules in the air, and Sanford could see traces of his life leaking out from the joints of his gauntlet.

 ** _APPLYING REGENERATIVE SOLUTION_** –his suit reported frantically, and he could already feel the needles sticking into the port attachments lining his upper arms.

 _Be better, Tobs, be better._

Sanford cried out and caved in an Assaultron's head with the butt of his rifle. The machine staggered into him, embracing him as spasms racked its malfunctioning limbs. Sanford planted a knee into its chest and sent the corpse flying. Sparks ripped across his armored back as a Mr. Gutsy-Protectron hybrid raked him with a spinning buzzsaw. Had he not been wearing the suit, that would've killed him outright.

 _Not today, you son of a bitch._

Sanford snarled hacked the thing in half at the waist. He diced right, left, right, and three robots were hacked like overgrown weeds beneath a machete from his path.

 _Cut through them._

He had to wade through the detritus of his victims. Their severed, sparking limbs and their destroyed bodies carpeted the street, being crushed and flattened beneath his boots.

 _Come on!_

Sanford killed his way closer to the end of the street, even though there were so many of these machines attacking him, that he couldn't see his friends' bodies anymore.

 _No no no!_

Sanford screamed, and cried and shouted, he spat every single curse and vulgarity he knew, hacking, slicing, shooting, punching and kicking like mad.

Still, with each sparking cadaver that flew from his presence, more of the machines flooded in to replace the losses. There had to be a hundred. There just had to be. There were so many, of all different shapes and builds. Humanoids, floating spheres, half-humanoids.

A Protectron body mounted on the treaded lower chassis of a Robobrain growled towards him, its torso buzzing with the uneven stance of the spiraling wheel-links keeping it afloat. The monstrosity's long arms were each capped with a Laser Gun, and they flapped like erratic serpents in the air, flashing crimson. Bolts of energy burnt into Sanford's gut and his chest, flashing to nothingness against the reinforced synthetic plating with vibrant belches of sparks and red carbon.

"- _God damn it-!_ " Sanford hollered, storming through the wrath of his enemies like a living battering ram. "- _Get out of my way!_ "

He ripped the robot apart with his bare hands, which, even though they were gauntleted, was a viciously attained achievement. The robot's torso screeched and ripped, Sanford barked and finished pulled his fingers away from each other with a final, jerking yank.

 ** _Crunch~!_** –electricity sparked, black machine-blood squirted onto his suit and decorated it with gruesome vine-like patterns of glistening night. The Protectron glacis cracked open like an egg, leaving its arms to limply flail on either end of its death throes.

Sanford roared terribly, he embraced the sparking corpse, and shoved its tremendous weight over. The robot yawed loudly as it collapsed, and it crushed a smaller example of its kin with a rattling _crash~!_ –upon the pavement.

 ** _APPLYING REGENERATIVE SOLUTION_**

 _What the hell?_

Sanford ducked and swept up his cutlass from where it had fallen. He came from below, eviscerating a Protectron model from the groin to where its chin would've been had it been human. The cadaver tossed back in a hurry, screeching, metallic vocalizations blaring from its ruined vox amplifiers.

 _Can't move my leg. Gotta'-_

Sanford sprayed the mob with a hip-mounted flare of his rifle, clearing out his space and scything down several of his foes. It gave him time to glance down at his right leg, where he realized to the fullest extent of what was occurring.

 _Oh my god._

The pain hadn't even registered, it was like Sanford's body had been waiting for his eyes to connect to the destruction of his flesh before alarming him with physical sensation.

The scavenger cried out as a mangled, repurposed Assaultron model tore back with the sharpened spear of steel welded into its arm gun pack. The crude weapon sang metallically as it parted from the jointal plating protecting the back of Sanford's knee crease. The tip, down to five inches of the makeshift spear's head was dripping with his blood.

 _Fuck!_

Sanford's tears streaked down his cheeks. Even with the application of the stims from inside his suit, the pain was indescribable. His leg buckled, and the mighty X-01 groaned fleetingly whilst the scavenger fell to a knee.

 _No! I won't let this happen!_

Sanford spat and screamed like a caged animal. He slashed out and dissected the Assaultron when it leaped to his flank. He opened its chest cuirass as a sparking, wrecked trench. He shot wildly, and in every direction, until the battery on his gun was naught and empty.

Robotic corpses tossed back, crimson trails of ruination vomiting from holes and burrows blasted into their heads, chests and guts. Another buzzsaw glanced off of Sanford's _helmet._ Still, with his headgear on, the blow that would've killed him without it felt like someone had hit him in the cranium with a two-by-four.

Sanford just grit his teeth and dealt with the pain. The noises emerging from his throat were almost mule-like because of it.

 _Make it stop._

Sanford hollered at the mass of machines like a defenseless, stubborn child. He threw his empty rifle at them, and it vanished into the crowds of metal and synthetics. His cutlass diced the ocu-lenses off a Mr. Gutsy with legs. Sanford's fingers wrapped around an Assaultron's head, and he squeezed until its central eye-unit popped like a mere Christmas ornament beneath a boot. Something wrapped over his shoulders and weighed him down. Sharp blows jerked both of his arms, his back and the pauldrons protecting his head.

 _Make it stop._

The scavenger threw whatever was on his back off. He tossed himself in its direction and landed in a sprawl across the street with a thunderous rumble. The Protectron-Assaultron hybrid clinging to him was pancaked beneath the pavement and the weight of his suit. He could feel it crunching and compressing.

 _Hancock._

Even as the endless swarm continued to overwhelm him, Sanford could pick out the blackened carcass of his robotic friend.

 _Nyx._

-And he could see the Deathclaw, sprawled on the street, helpless.

He saw them as they were taken.

He had originally intended for his dismayed scream to be formed into words. There was supposed to be a few ' _No!'s_ in there, followed by curses and vulgarity that would normally be heaped from the likes of Hancock himself.

But none of that actually emerged as anything intelligible from Sanford's lips. It all came out as a mangled, distraught cry. The pain, being flattened under his attackers and the panic rendered Sanford incapable of comprehensible speech.

It took five of the misshapen machines to drag Nyx away. They defiled her beautiful coat with their claws and sinuous, metallic cables that shot from arm mountings. The mighty reptile's scales hissed and scraped like plates of loose armor on the street. Weakly, he could see her taloned hand extended, as even in her unconscious state she resisted the pull of something she'd spent her life fleeing from.

 _Nyx._

Hancock was a simpler load. A single, yellow-painted Protectron with bulky, reinforced and custom arms scooped the blackened Mr. Gutsy off the street. Sanford could do nothing as the robot waddled off with his friend. He could see Hancock's limp limbs dangling past the Protectron's elbow joints. Further and further away were his friends sent.

It was too much.

Sanford Tobs turned redder than a cherry, and even with the tears, the weight and the inability to move, the scavenger would have appeared utterly terrifying had his helmet not been covering his visage. Rank and ugly enragement poured into his heart and mutated his persona. The anger and the hatred brewing in him for whoever had sent the metallic killers reached a boiling point.

 _I won't let them do it._

Sanford cried and screamed. His kicks disabled a pair of the Junkers over his legs, and his arms swept from the ground, casting another robot raggedly from atop him. The scavenger fought and bustled his way to his feet, his sword slipping from his fingers, claws, saws and cables dragging and whipping over every inch of his armored body. The sun was blotted from his eyes and his world was that of punching, sparking darkness.

It was nighttime for Mr. Tobs, where he was strangled by the immensity of what he was up against.

 _Ya' know something?_

Sanford fought through the urge to sob, and grunt and heave. He chuckled, even as he fell onto an Assaultron, gritting his teeth in a demonic visage whilst he used his fingers to pry its steel skull in half.

 _I wonder what time it is._

How long had he been killing and maiming and slaughtering in this mess? Had it been hours? Had it only been minutes? Had it really been such a short period of time that everything he loved was about to be threatened with extinction?

 _I've failed._

He grunted and ripped open the dome of a Robobrain model. The glass splintered through the air like a cloud of snowflakes. Sanford gripped the quivering, chimpanzee brain inside, and ripped it from the glistening, wet moorings inside the shattered dome.

Blood trailed over his gauntlet. He crushed the brain with a single flex of his steel fingers, popping it like a scarlet, fleshy bubble.

 _You've gotta' be kidding me._

There was a flash of blue light, and something hard impacted Sanford on the shoulder. It threatened to knock him back down to the pavement with how forceful the impact was.

At first, Sanford thought he had been hit by a Gauss round from some faraway support robot, but the reality was much more frightening than any sort of visualization as the prior.

Whatever they had hit Sanford with, as he continued to punch, kick and rabidly battle for his life- he realized something horrifying –he was out from under the mob swamping him, and somehow, still, it was dark as night.

 _My suit._

Sanford gasped in terror.

He couldn't see his internal display. His suit's HUD was blank, and his lenses were small. He was viewing the world through a pair of tiny peep-holes without the electronic support.

 _EMP round,_ he thought, his head jolting to the side from a nasty blow.

They had shut down his suit's systems.

Even now, his limbs were becoming heavier, and sluggish. Without the operation of his suit's servo-joints, the powered musculature meshes were beginning to fail, and soon, Sanford would be unable to move, his mortal strength incapable of lifting the suit's bare weight.

 _I'm going to die._

Scrap ripped, metal sheered and circuits screamed. Sanford's roar rattled hollowly inside his dormant suit, it echoed across the street like the screech of a madman. He used his knee to shatter the pelvis of a Protectron hybrid. He shouldered the corpse away, head-butted another of its kind and smashed the next robot's face into its own neck.

He played hammer with his loose, non-responsive arms. He battered aside one victim, stepped on the quivering body, and brought both his fists down with such force, that an Assaultron was nearly cleaved in two from the cranium to between its shoulders.

 _There she is._

The robot he'd killed had been the bearer of the EMP weapon. It was a cannon mounting that Sanford had never seen before, some custom contraption littered with crimson and blue wires, and sparking Tesla towers protruding from its stock.

 _What a wonder, that._

Sanford's darkness did not end there, even as the swarm began to whittle beneath his animalistic killing spree. The ground trembled, scrap was crushed under the squeaking, rattling mountings of something else. He could _feel_ the shadow descending over him before he saw it.

 _What do we have here?_

Sanford's joints squeaked as he forced his suit around, he lumbered like a tin-man suffering from speedily spreading rust, his insectoid helm dark, his chin raised defiantly even in his throes of a last stand.

 _You are one big fucker._

It crushed a path through the piled remnants of its smaller kin, three reinforced, armored wheel-mountings trembling as limbs, torsos and heads split like paper-mache baubles under their spinning masses.

The machine had once been a recognizable model, but now it was something entirely different. Its head was wrapped in barbed wire, as were its shoulders. Ramshackle plate armor replaced its curved glacis, and angular cannons jutted from where its original arms would have been.

As if to punctuate how royally fucked he really was, he could see a small, brown-colored _teddy-bear,_ a child's toy, nailed unceremoniously across the Sentry Bot's wired-up head.

 _Look at that little thing, some kid's old time friend._

Sanford laughed as the armored, taller killing machine rumbled towards him, crimson light streaming through the wire and the fur of the ruined toy strapped over its face. Deep-toned, nonsensical garblings of electronic speech filtered out from the robot's malfunctioning vox amplifiers.

 _Looks like it's the end anyway._

Sanford grunted as he forced his hands lower, and forwards. Fighting through the proverbial sludge eating away at his joints, impossibly managing a taught smile in the face of such carnage; the scavenger found himself laughing.

 _Boy, do I have a present for you, you fat fuck._

" ** _Target. marked for – immediate. termination._** " –Growled the repurposed machine, its thick, automated voice finally breaking free of patterns of static with a virulent hiss of garbled noise. " ** _Have. a. nice. day._** "

 _I was having one until you showed, pal._

Sanford grimaced as he dragged his non-responsive arm from the confines of his rucksack. He managed to get just enough of the mesh to respond to his commands before his suit began to entirely shut down.

He willed the gauntlets' fingers on both hands to move, specifically, he pushed downwards with his thumbs.

The darkly colored spheres in each palm didn't each need their own activations. All it took was the rune of one each.

Thus, the Plasma Grenades went live, their tiny whines drowned by the noise of the rumbling SentryBot, and Sanford's resultant shout.

"- _I'm taking you all with me~!_ " –The scavenger screamed, and with that, Sanford shoved all of his weight into the X-01, and he fell onto the SentryBot's torso, wrapping his armored arms over its mechanical hips.

Steel crunched, the ground rumbled and a crescendo of volume was born from the surrounding Junker robots.

Sanford couldn't feel any of himself. He couldn't feel his skin, his flesh, his heartbeat or even the pain from any of the blows he'd received.

All he saw was white, and then blackness. The grenades detonated, and bathed everything in eternity for him.

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

The grass felt warm against his skin. It was heated by the touch of the sun, and it swayed under the breath of a cool, afternoon breeze.

The breeze itself made the trees overhead whisper. There were millions of millions of leaves, green, live and vibrant _leaves_ caught in its draft. They touched one another, tickled their neighbors, and disturbed a resolute finery that could never be remade.

 _I know that sound,_ he thought. _My god, I know that sound._

His lungs were filled with oxygen in a silent, but drawn-out gasp. His eyes flickered open, his fingers became white at the knuckles as he clawed the warm grass, and his tongue retracted from his lips as he tasted the earthy flavor of raw earth on his teeth.

 _Jesus Christ._

Whiteness stabbed into his mind's eye, swirling with a blankness that could never be undone in this place, because here the past did not exist. Here, there was only a present, and a means with which to catapult back to what he knew was real and not fiction.

 _This is…_

Sanford Tobs almost said _beautiful._ He almost said- ' _This is beautiful'_ –but he did not, because as he rolled onto his side, and felt the warm grass coating his ribs, and his hips, and his thighs, he instantly recognized the depths of what he was experiencing.

This was not beautiful.

 _This is wrong._

Sanford still gave into an almost euphoric desperation. He laid on land that was vibrant. The grass here was… _emerald._ It was green. It was not tanned, and dry and mutated, it was… _alive._

Green. Greenery everywhere. Pollen on the air, and blue, clear skies stringed with fragrant wisps of finger-like clouds. The sun here dappled on trees that were thick with vegetation. It made the leaves turn gold in its glare, to make the trees look like dancing stilts of singularly colored fireworks in the brand new day's light.

 _Life._

The wind kissed him passionately, as if the world here itself had been made to mourn his long absence, and was overcome with happiness, and fervent arousal.

It was the cleanest air Sanford could remember smelling. It was untouched by pollution, and war and suffering and grief.

 _I missed you so much._

Sanford closed his eyes and sucked in as much of that clean air as he could manage. He touched the grass, he wavered his hands through it, he let it lick at every inch of his naked body.

 _So this is it, this is my turmoil and whatnot,_ Sanford smiled. It was a strange expression, something between a mimicry of his relief, his happiness, and a gained understanding of suffering. _I didn't think I deserved this._

Sanford moaned as the sun heated his skin, and the adrenaline that infected his bones began to subside for an everlasting peace.

 _I am dead._

The wind caressed him for that. It spoke to him in silence, spinning tales for him in the glare of the star above.

 _I am dead, and I am-_

-Sanford was forced to catch himself once more.

He was about to say- ' _I am dead, and I am alone' –_ but it was not a truth that he would be forced to say, because it was an un-truth. It was false.

The fingers splaying on his chest were ample proof of that.

 _That isn't the wind._

Without much preparation, even, did he react as accordingly. His hands took up the thumb, and the index of this alien set of digits. It was all his smaller extensions could manage; seeing as this hand was almost the size of both his pectorals.

 _Well, hot damn, even up here,_ Sanford opened his eyes, and he smiled with all his teeth. _I can't believe she fucking found me._

There was no connection of what held most common in their fleshly activities. The shadow blotting out the sun touched him, massaged him and straddled his hips, and yet there was not an ounce of sexuality to be experienced from these ministrations.

Curling, ram-like horns blotted out the world on either side of his face. The scaly, slippery texture of the creature's nose touched to his forehead, and even through her fangs could he feel the kiss being placed there.

 _Here, we're formless,_ Sanford realized, even as his hands fled down the lengths of her outer, armored thighs. _I'm just seeing what I know, but, what I know no longer matters. It's-_

A voice interrupted his thoughts, one so low, that he struggled to hear it through the gleam of the calm wind.

"You found me."

They were his own words. Sanford had been the one to speak.

He gazed at the shadow blotting out the Old World's sun, and shielding him from the whispering, green trees. Yellow eyes met his, shining, even in broad daylight. Though he could discern no expression physically, he could feel her smile, as if he had said something amusing to her in this coming moment of ecstasy.

"Of course I did." She told him, and bent down once again to kiss him a second time. "I will follow you wherever you may go, and I will always find you."

Sanford perched his head off the ground, and he made to resign himself to that spot, to never care or worry about anything in his life ever again. He made to kiss her back, to see eternity like that in the folds of her tongue, and her fangs and her immensity.

 _I can die like this,_ he allowed. _And it's about time. Do it. I want it to happen. Just like this._

Sanford's lips touched Nyx's snout, the wind gossiped around them, and when it seemed like the next step of their very existences had been reached, the dream ended.

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

"- _Pffft- Agh~!_ "

Sanford had experienced some rough falls in his life, even ones that had threatened to steal his consciousness, and ones that had succeeded in doing so.

A decade was a long time for things to happen, and needless to say, the scavenger had enjoyed his fair share of being thrown through walls, falling through weak floors and roofs, and being smacked by street-lanterns wielded as clubs by angry Super Mutants.

He'd never had a hangover or a drug-induced passing-out before, in contrast to all of those horrendous things. So it was interesting how when he finally did come to, that _that_ was the first thing he acquainted his reawakening too.

The headache, the shivering, the coldness were all the more trademarks of a defeated body, in more ways than one.

Thus Sanford Tobs stewed in the darkness and crushing endlessness surrounding him, he let his cheek sit in the accumulation of saliva running down his face, he let his arms and legs remain painfully spread, and he let his neck sit in the uncomfortable angle it was suffering from.

Sanford breathed like that for a very long time. He listened to a raggedy gust of a cold breeze blow over his head, and he took in the slight metallic chime that it enjoyed as it passed over his suit.

 _My suit._

Sanford's breathing pitched, and he tried to move his head.

 _Oh my god._

The pain was terrible. It felt like someone had twisted his neck-muscles into a knot.

 _Oh shit._

The scavenger groaned and hissed, slowly twisting his chin south, north, west and east. Up-down, left-right, until the pain became somewhat manageable, but always omnipresent.

 _God almighty._

He flexed his fingers inside his gauntlets, curiously feeling around the environments he was supposed to be so used to in his daily utilization. Everything felt… _bigger,_ and hollow without the muscular mesh working. Normally, the gauntlets would react with his motions, but now, they were nothing more than armored boxes sealing his wriggling hands in.

 _Hancock's gonna' have a fit getting me out of this one, he's probably going to have to cut open the rear cuirass plate and-_

"- _Hancock!_ " Sanford suddenly cried, his voice ringing around inside the darkness of his suit, and adding to his splitting headache. "- _Han'…_ " –He whispered afterward, gritting his teeth. "… _Hancock? …Come in…_ "

What the hell was he doing? His suit was fried, the com link wouldn't work.

"… _Nyx?_ " He whispered that, as if in hopes that the dream he had had was not really over. "…I'm… I'm sorry… I can't…"

Sanford shut his eyes tightly, keeping them that way until only a tear flowed, and he was able to cut the depression at the head.

 _What have I done?_

The scavenger let his head go lax, and he smacked his forehead into the bridge of the X-01's interior headspace. He groaned as the headache flared.

 _I'm_ not _dead,_ he corrected himself from earlier, when things had been in Paridiso. _I'm not fucking dead._

His clenched his trapped hands into fists.

 _You took that away from me, you son of a bitch. I could've been dead. I could've been that way. My god, what if…_

A terrible, heart-gripping thought poisoned his mind.

 _What if… I came back, but she's still-_

Sanford decapitated his horror with a vibrant, terrible _scream._ It was the sound of a wounded animal that knew its injury was fatal. Sanford hollered, and screamed and barked inside his helmet until his throat went dry. He wanted to slam his head into the interior faceplate until he bled, and only the colossal pain from his headache prevented him from meeting that end.

"- _Fuck~!_ " He cried, letting his voice bounce off the metal around him. "… _Oh no…_ "

He tried to wiggle his torso, to move his legs, and to accentuate his concerns, he could hear his suit shift underneath a mound. Tiny parts and even large parts of scrap tumbled from the piles that he knew were surrounding him. The hill of entombing garbage shifted, and as he regained his senses, he could dimly hear fires crackling outside his armor.

 _Are those…_ Sanford opened an eye. _…Crickets?_

Indeed they were. It was nighttime.

 _How long have I…?_

-It didn't matter. What mattered firstly was how he was going to get out of here.

 _Tobs, you're alive. Sucks for you, but there's a reason that it's happened, right?_

Sanford ground his teeth, and wriggled his hands about in their gauntleted prisons.

 _They took them. Hancock and Nyx. They took them._

Sanford found what he was looking for after long, agonizing moments of probing around blindly inside the gloves of the X-01. His right hand discovered its own end first, a tiny grip that was hidden under the response bars that were meant to control the suit's digits and thumb.

 _The emergency pulls._

Sanford found both of them on each side, and with an audible grunt, he pulled them each with two fingers for insurance.

 ** _Chssskkk~!_** –the back of the X-01 popped open like a burst tin can. Steam bustled in time with a raining array of debris that was kicked off the back hatches unfurling. The suit's emergency systems worked nicely, just as Sanford had hoped they would when he had rebuilt and fixed them.

 _Bingo._

Sanford resembled a Feral Ghoul with how he began the agonizing process of rising. The man emerged from the opened back of the Power Armor, teetering, dizzied, clasping at the X-01's rib rims for balance.

He knelt inside the more-or-less intact internal mesh of the suit, and his boggled eyes took in his surroundings with a keen series of sweeps.

The street surrounding him was utterly decimated, and by that, he meant it was drowned in the trails of robotic viscera.

 _Christ._

Sanford regained control over his breathing, but still managed a shocked sigh as he observed the mountains of destroyed Junker robots surrounding and burying his suit. There were _tens_ of them, tens and tens and tens, maybe even a hundred.

They were twisted this way and that, draped over one another, shot full of holes, bored through at the chests, ripped in half, decapitated, de-armed, de-legged.

It was carnage, a scrap pile licked with tiny traces of flickering flame and glowing, volcanic-looking embers.

Sanford jumped in fright when he faced his suit's immediate north, and calmed himself when he realized the origin of the massive shadow hanging over his head.

The SentryBot didn't even look like a SentryBot anymore. The large robot had almost melted, and now resembled a giant, blackened and expended candlestick. Fire lapped from its backpack setup, sparks kicked from the warped slabs of its blasted torso, and the smell of melting plastic filled his nostrils.

 _That took care of him at least._

Shakily, Sanford hissed, and climbed out of the suit's flank. His boots immediately crunched through the mounds of Junker detritus that his suit was buried in.

"- _you gotta' be kidding me…_ " The scavenger mumbled under his breath, kicking a loose, severed claw-arm off the bridge of his foot.

Standing unsteadily, his legs feeling like gelatin, Sanford rolled his shoulders and rotated his wrists, he quivered in the nighttime darkness, looking down at his half-buried suit.

 _Oh no._

The scavenger felt another urge to cry, but this time it wasn't because of the crashing weight of his own failure to protect the ones he loved, it was because of the material loss that was literally lying in the dirt at his feet.

 _All those hours I spent fixing her up, rebuilding her from scratch, finding all those parts and… oh Jesus up in heaven._

Sanford tugged at his jaw, stifling a resultant sniffle from the overwhelming prospect of this colossal defeat.

 _What am I going to do?_

Sanford felt more naked now than he had been in that dream. Though he was garbed in leather and the scavenged Army plating he wore, these things were nothing in comparison to a suit of X-01 Power Armor. Sanford had to admit, the constant use of that armor had made him arrogant and spoiled in a sense. Not having it, the idea of pursuing things as he had when he was younger… _terrified_ him.

 _I don't care about that though._

Sanford breathed, and regained his composure, now glaring down at the ruined suit of armor.

 _Hancock and Nyx need me._

The scavenger spent a good while tearing his rucksack off the X-01's thigh, and for the first time in over a year did he secure the straps not over his armored thigh, but over his own _shoulders._ The weight was unfamiliar, but it did remind him of times past, almost nostalgically too.

 _Those grenades did their job just the way I would've wanted them to,_ Sanford smiled sadly as he used his boot to nudge aside a Protrectron corpse. _What was I thinking?_

He picked up his cutlass from the ruins, and secured the handle in a strap over his uniform's belt.

 _Back to old times. Maybe everything over the last year was a dream, not what I saw with all that grass and… and that air. That clean air._

Sanford knelt, and tumbling bits of robotics fell from his arms as he pried his trusty Laser Rifle from the scrap.

 _At least some of my toys still work._

He changed the battery face and inspected the device. Aside from being blackened by the heat, and a whole lot of scuffs and dents, things seemed to be in working order. The projectors still spun on the barrel too.

 _We'll travel light,_ Sanford huffed to himself, listening to the affirmative _ch-chkk!_ –of the spare pistol before he stowed it in the other strap next to his sword. _Take things as they are, just like we used to._

Sanford Tobs stood in his un-armored, thin glory atop the scrap mounds of the robots he'd defeated. He brandished his Laser Rifle over his shoulder, and swept the nighttime street, and the blissfully dark buildings with a keen eye.

"…On the road," He mumbled, turning around and looking down at his sorry, half-buried suit. Its silence, and its darkness wounded him. "-I'll come back for you." He told it. "I promise."

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-


	7. Chapter 7 - The Junker

**VII**

 **The Junker**

* * *

His footsteps were lighter, his arms swung with the weight of air, and the weapon in his hands felt alien to him, like it was shifting in shape and composition before his very eyes.

The dark city around him was a catalyst of unknowns, uncertainties and petty fears that he had believed long ago abolished. Sanford knew that if he had been as he normally was- garbed in his beloved armor plate –that the shadows wouldn't have cowed him.

But the problem was, without synthetic slabs of metal to put between him and the teeth and claws and bullets of the wasteland, the scavenger was experiencing a layman's night out here. He had to remember that most folk weren't blessed with the relics he had managed to rework. Though this was a step backward, Sanford could actually see a tint of humility in its passing.

 _Back to old times._

So much time having been spent on haughtily entering hostile realms had made Sanford drunk with hubris and certain confidence. Now, he scuttled down the sunken streets of Boston City like a rat, zipping between shadows, moving from one spot of cover to the next.

 _At least it's dark._

Sanford wasn't experiencing the least degree of panic- as he had been doing what he did best for entirely too long for that to happen –but he still had to swallow his own barrier for haste. Moving around was always frightening. The dark would help with being spotted by other people, but Sanford knew that there were things lurking out here that had the eyes of cats.

 _Kinda' like Nyx._

Sanford felt his chest twist up. He experienced a plummeting sensation, and it was wholly as unpleasant as it was stirring.

 _I have to move faster._

The scavenger ground his teeth, looped around the sad hulk of a rusty car, and advanced down a long line of sidewalk. He was careful to keep his footfalls quiet, even as his emotions weighted him down and filled him with feelings of confusion, and anger and panic.

 _My friends have been kidnapped._

It actually almost made Sanford laugh. It would've been a humorless, venomous gesture of irony had it actually come to pass.

 _One of them, for a second time._

Sanford recalled when the Insitute had taken Nyx. It had been on a poorer day, when he and the Deathclaw were still in the awkward throes of understanding one another. There had been a lot of darkness, but also a lot of discovery. There had been a kindling, and there had been that…

…that woman.

Sanford shouldered behind a trio of newspaper dispensers, frowning, as he formed to a kneel and scanned the street ahead.

He supposed it was the trademark of someone with combat experience; to multitask as he was. It was as if his body was going through the motions of procedure, while his mind twisted on itself like a serpent attempting to constrict its own throat.

 _The decisions I've made,_ Sanford sighed. _Do I have to be a killer_ and _an idiot? Wasn't the first one I said enough for you to swallow?_

Sanford- having seen nothing of concern to make him halt his trek –moved around the dispensers, running in a crouched jog for the way ahead.

 _Feel these hands, man,_ Sanford wiggled his fingers over the stock and handle of his rifle. _Bloody hands. Hands of a killer, these._

How many people had he killed over the course of his life? Way more than Nyx ever had, or probably ever would throughout her existence. How many bad choices had he made with these very hands?

Was it ironic, that to most people, the _monster_ of their little wasteland family unit was her, when Sanford was the one who had truly left rivers of spilled life in his wake?

 _Who's the real monster?_

Sanford shut his eyes in a brief moment of overwhelming posterity. He crouched behind a strain of rubble disgorging from a hollowed out storefront.

 _I failed her again._

He had failed both of them. Nyx and Hancock. It was just doubly horrible for him to realize that he had failed the prior _twice._

 _I'll fix this._

Sanford was creeping around the debris with an assassin's ear to the wind, and it was for the former attentions that his carefulness paid off.

The little scrabbling noise wasn't too far off, it was close enough that Sanford could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rising. He instinctively looked down for his own chin, expecting his Power Armor's scanning field to be awaiting him with a detailed report of the thing's position.

 _You're not tin-man anymore, Tobs,_ Sanford grinned at his own sadistic discovery of musing. _Wake up, or you'll die._

He still had his rifle's safety off, though he was hesitant to actually use the gun unless he was absolutely forced to. Gunfire out here would attract attention. There were gangs of people that lived in these ruins, gangs of Super Mutants, Feral Ghouls and all manner of hostile wildlife.

The last thing Sanford needed was to get swamped again, and this time, _without_ a suit of armor on.

 _Let's keep things quiet,_ the scavenger wriggled his fingers over the grip of his gun. _If we can._

The idea of running from a fight abhorred the man, but if it came down to things, Nyx and Hancock were more important, and no one else was going to save them if he ended up dead out here.

 _Patience, Tobs, patience._

His father had said that to him long ago in the past. Though the words held power, they still made Sanford's gorge rise.

 _I fucking hate that man._

Sanford wandered through the blown out storefront. It had once been a one-story building, but now, it was nothing more than a tiny, convoluted maze of still-standing walls, brick rises and piles of rubble. The building had literally imploded, and in the stead of a ceiling, the starry and cloudy night sky bloomed above his head like a sheet of coalescing onyx.

 _Helios is just up ahead,_ Sanford thought. _And I know that's where I need to go._

He hid behind a crushed series of filing cabinets that were against a strip of crumbling short-wall. Taking cover in the building's exposed bones, the scavenger could hear the disturbance he had processed before just on the other side of the wall.

It was a curious cacophony of noise. There was the scrabbling of claws, the whistle of a stuffy, ugly pair of nostrils sampling the air, and the slight growl of a feral temperament.

 _I should've known,_ Sanford rolled his eyes, and flipped his rifle around in his hands. _No use in wasting the shot._

With that, Sanford rose and looped around his hiding spot, his boots kicking loose bricks and causing miniature landslides.

The pinkish, slender outline of the Molerat was easy enough to spot, even in the darkness. It had just raised its hideous little head, and its tail was just starting to whip with surprise. It glared at Sanford with these beady, squinted little eyes, and sought to intimidate him with its disease-ridden, sharp fangs.

 _Ugly little shit._

Granted, the Molerat reacted entirely too fast for its own good. It leapt off the ground like a pink, wrinkly frog, tiny, barbed claws outstretched, mouth agape and trailing nasty spittle.

Sanford had anticipated an ugly fight for an ugly pest. Thus, he was prepared. Wielding his rifle like a club, Sanford slid to a halt, reared back, and slapped the Molerat out from in front of his face, swinging his gun like a baseball bat.

 ** _Crunch~!_** –sounded the impact. The Molerat's pained squeal trilled across the ruins for but an instant. It landed nearby, limbs flailing, rear legs kicking with almost felinoid panic. Sanford rushed over, and he brought the butt of his gun down on its ugly face.

 ** _Crack~!_** –the animal's head jolted in an agonizingly sharp angle. Sanford grit his teeth, pinned its tiny chest with his boot, and slammed his gun into its skull four more consecutive times until it stopped moving.

 ** _Crack-Crack-Crack-Crack~!_** –bone crunched, and the Molerat's face collapsed into its own skull as a crimson, leaking trench.

Sanford snorted, shaking some blood droplets off the rear of his weapon in the resultant quiet.

 _As Hancock would say; don't screw with the San of the Fo-_

It was probably a sign from the heavens that Sanford was interrupted in quoting Hancock's normally annoying statements. After all, what would've come to pass if the scavenger had committed such a grievous sin?

The Molerat had a friend, and Sanford just had enough time to whip around and hold up his rifle defensively, before the leaping animal landed on him.

The Molerat sounded demonic, even over Sanford's panicked bark, even as his feet lost purchase, and he landed roughly on the rubble strewn floor. It screeched and hissed and snapped, its teeth clambering over the spine of Sanford's gun where it had bitten down.

Its claws made marks over his leather and infantry padding. The Molerat made a ripping motion with its head, trying to tear the gun from the human's fingers.

 _Crazy little shit!_

Sanford grit his teeth and rammed his kneeplate into the Molerat's groin. The animal shrieked, lost its toothy grip on his weapon, and flew clean over Sanford's head in a dastardly oriented flip.

The mutated pest must have hit something hard, because even though Sanford didn't see it, he heard something metallic produce a sharp _clang!_ –noise, and he heard the Molerat give off a weak choking sound.

"… _That's what I get…_ " Sanford grumbled, righting himself and dusting off his uniform. "-for being such a shitty friend."

As it stood, he wasn't even angry when the situation further devolved. In fact, Sanford took the following occurrence with a brash grin.

"As I said; you're all here because of _karma._ " Sanford was seemingly amused as he swept his gaze across the entire eastern flank of the ruined storefront. The pattern of tiny hisses, snarling growls and nasally shrieks drowned out his speech, but did not remove its purpose. "Look, karma or not, I don't have time for this shit."

Sanford tore his looted cutlass free from the other side of his belt, and it bathed the ruins an eerie crimson as he activated the stud on its handle, wrapping the blade in wavering, carbon energy.

"So let's get this over with." Sanford twirled his fingers, letting the sword spiral in a quick loop. "Who's first?"

Though they numbered over ten, to maybe thirteen or fourteen, the pack of Molerats were nothing but a stepping stone to Sanford Tobs, a stone meant to lift him to what he ultimately needed to do.

One of them hurled through the air, screeching, baring fangs and lashing with tiny, bladed paws. Sanford ducked westward and let the little monster fall onto the teeth of his sword.

He let the blood run down his wrists, and slid the impaled corpse from the girth of his blade with a downwards tip of his hands. Sanford curled the cutlass in a graceful underhanded sweep, and the decapitated head of a second Molerat twisted in bloody wheels in the air behind him.

The animals advanced on him as one, crawling over rubble, leaping from filing cabinets and trampling the mangled bodies of their dead.

The ruins echoed with the grunts of a tortured man and the death shrieks of his rodentia foes for many long minutes.

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

 _Why do you not eat it?_

It was such a simple question, one born from a mind entirely wrapped in feral innocence. Though it was asked on a foundation of naivety, it did not lessen the vulgarity of its offense to her in any way, shape or form.

Even back then, before she had made her personality concrete, the probing tendrils of other folk's minds had caused her to retract and undulate from them.

 _Why don't you just eat it?_ –The question was repeated in nagging.

At that second, she had had the tip of her snout engrossed in the furry confines of what the other was indicating. She remembered that the fur had smelt like mothballs, and yet, it was a diluted stench, one that wasn't powerful enough to sweep away her love of the object.

 _Because it isn't alive._

Her body quivered as the wafting trails of pheromone-speak left her scales and permeated the chamber's atmosphere. Her eye ridge quirked itself into a scrutinizing expression to match her glare, and she stared down the other that was sitting on the earth before her under an impatient atmosphere.

 _It isn't?_ The male asked dumbly. She remembered that he possessed milky eyes. They glowed like a pair of diamonds, unmarred by traces of earth, and caught in beams of light in the shadow. He widened them, lowering his snout, transfixing himself upon the thing in her grasp. _Then why does it look like it is?_

 _Because you are stupid,_ she shrugged, her chops smacking with a disillusioned lack of care. _It is my teddy bear, and you will leave it alone._

 _What is it?_ The male's fingers had been opened as he sought to reach out and touch the little stuffed animal, they now retracted with a curious twitch. _What did you call it?_

 _A teddy bear. A stuffed animal._ She hugged the ratty, brown bear to her breast, her upper chop twitching as she snarled at him. _It is my comfort animal._

 _It looks like food,_ the male sat back on the dirt, his tail whipping behind himself in a perplexed dance. _Animals are meant for eating._

 _Not this animal,_ she shook her head, her serpentine tongue flicking over the teddy bear's nose. _This is my comfort animal,_ she reiterated.

 _So you won't eat it?_

 _No!_

 _…_ _Can I eat it?_

 _Newcomer~!_ –The female's scents shrieked, pluming around the room like a rushing wall of fire. She clutched the bear to her chest and pranced backward from the male with a trio of panicked steps. _Newcomer, help!_

 _I am busy,_ drawled a hushed response from nearby. The smell wasn't even that powerful, it was merely a touch of pheromonal effort, the equal nature of a speaker's whisper.

 _She is_ always _busy._ The male turned his attention from the teddy bear, exposing his fangs towards the back of the darkened chamber, where a hunched, gray shape sat looming in the shadows with its spined back turned to them.

 _Newcomer?_ The younger female's tail twitched, and she lowered the teddy bear in her bladed fingers.

 _She doesn't listen to you, or anyone else,_ the male shook his head, his white eyes locking onto the bear again. _Why are the females in this clan so broken?_

 _They aren't broken,_ both of them looked back at the hunched hideaway on the fringes of their scent-conversation. _They see the value of sentimental things. Them understanding what they seek for happiness is not wrong of them._

 _Oh yeah?_ The male growled.

 _Yes._ The Newcomer turned her horned head around, shattering his boldness with but a single glare of her golden, yellowish eyes. _And if you cannot accept that, you will voice your concerns to_ me.

Before, it had seemed as though the male was insulted that the Newcomer could not make time to dish out a solution for an instigation he had caused. Now, he faltered, and was experiencing not indignation, but intimidation.

The female with the teddy bear took that as a cue, and hurriedly moved away from him. On the other side of the chamber, the Newcomer felt a rising sensation of agitation as she turned around and pretended to not notice the other's encroachment.

 _What are you doing?_

The Newcomer snorted and didn't answer her immediately, her bladed thumb producing a slight crackle as it was dragged through the chamber floor's soil.

 _Newcomer?_

 _Go away._

The Newcomer sighed when her demands were contradicted. In fact, the teddy bear lover's defiance was granted from the very stupidity that she had accused the male of suffering.

The ground thudded as she took a seat and observed what the larger female was doing. For the Newcomer's part, an awkward silence on their olfactory nodes descended, as she was caught between feeling anger at the disruption, and excitement over an observer seeing her efforts.

While the teddy bear lover had been arguing, the Newcomer had been using the tips of her claws to make tiny, delicate symbols in the dirt. They were alien sigils with curves and sweeps and specifics that the teddy bear lover didn't understand, and never did wind up understanding.

 _What do those symbols mean?_ The teddy bear lover asked.

 _They're letters,_ the Newcomer shrugged, her tail curling protectively over her own legs on the ground. _Letters from the Old World. I'm studying them._

 _With that?_ The younger female pointed via talon to something lying by the Newcomer's hip.

It was an opened, dusty and ancient book, one so old that many of its pages had crumbled to dust, and the surviving pages were tanned with age and brittle. Just enough of the writing inside was legible to make out broken words, charts of more perfected examples of the letters drawn in the dirt. There were so many of them that they boggled the teddy bear lover's mind.

 _What is that?_ She asked. _Is that your comfort… object?_

 _It's a book._

 _I know that smell!_

 _You know teddy bears,_ the Newcomer nodded over her shoulder at the ratty little stuffed animal. _Should it come as a surprise that you know of books?_

 _I know of books! Do you know of cars?_

 _Indeed._

 _We both know so much about them!_ The younger female quaintly placed her teddy bear by her hip, and beamed at the Newcomer with vibrant pride. _We both know so many smell-terms for the humans._

 _Humans,_ the Newcomer snorted, looking back down at her dirt-written letters. _They are animals, just like your bear. They are nothing more._

 _What do you mean?_ The teddy bear lover asked, her nostrils flaring as she tested the air over the ancient book. _Animals snarl, and growl and are stupid. Humans do what we cannot. They build, they make symbols on surfaces and can understand words from them. They communicate without scent-smells. How do they do that?_

 _They speak._ The Newcomer snorted again. "… _like this._ They speak using their throats."

 _Are you sick?_ The teddy bear lover blinked at the words rasping from the other's mouth. _What were those noises you just made?_

 _I spoke in their language. They use their mouths._

 _To place scent-smells?_

 _They don't use scents, they-_

Even at the prospect of explaining the process to someone other than herself, had the Newcomer leapt at the opportunity. But, as she remembered accurately, it was never meant to be.

The teddy bear lover turned her gaze to the ground, and produced an audible shriek when she saw that her stuffed animal was missing.

In the back of the chamber, there was a slight trill of tearing fabric. Both females glared at the male, who, feeling the discovering eyes drilling into his flank, raised his head in surprised guilt, strands of ratty fur and white stuffing sticking from between all his fangs.

In a second of time was the younger female on her feet, and sprinting across the chamber. The Newcomer watched in defeat as the teddy bear lover tackled the male to the ground, hissing, yelling, cursing him in ever smell-scent she knew. She clawed open his arm, punched him powerfully under the chin, and soon the two Deathclaws were rolling about the floor, spitting, hacking, fighting.

A few of the nearby others in the surrounding chamber cavities leant over stalagmites and around arches to observe the battle. They resembled crowds of levitating yellow, crimson and white eyes, occasionally blinking, or shifting as they edged closer, and eventually worked towards breaking the fight up.

The Newcomer snorted and turned back to writing the alphabet in the dirt, ignoring the happenings of her tribe as she always did.

She made to turn the book's page, and instead ripped yet another corner of the paper free. She snarled under her breath, and did her best to write down a shaky letter **_P._**

 _P for piss. Piss and shit. It was all I ever felt like._

The darkness of the cave became ever more complete. She had already been there for so long, and yet the Deathclaws of her tribe had always called her that until the end of their days.

 _Newcomer._

She had escaped the Enclave, and they had still found her. She had always been a Newcomer, yet she had been nothing but an Outcast for far longer.

 _The teddy bear lover. Mon dieu, how I have forgotten of her._

There was a slight jolt of cold sensation, and the chill of air touching her scales. Nyx could no longer see the cave from all those years ago in the west, and she could no longer see the others of her kind she had so been ignorant of in her more blessed days.

The dream ended, and Nyx shivered as she awoke. The chains suspending her huge arms in the air rattled.

"… _Sanford…?_ " The Deathclaw tiredly asked, shaking her horned head, leering her exhausted and squinted eyes about her surroundings. " _…Usiner…?_ "

There was nothing. No answers, no movements, and no sounds. There was a chamber, one of cold ambiance, with a tiled floor, and walls that glinted their obvious metal makeup even in the dark. Mist gathered about the ground like a colony of phantoms skittering around her heels and cloven feet. There were heavy wrought-iron binds that secured both of her wrists in a fervent lock. The cuffs were wrapped over with a securing of chains that were tethered to a heavy pair of hooks bolted into the ceiling.

 _Quelle est cette folie?_

Nyx bore her fangs and yanked against the restraints, the chains' high pitched song echoing throughout the empty chamber.

 _This cannot be really happening._

The Deathclaw slouched in her imprisoned state, her tail lashing like a whip to her rear, her golden eyes now positively beaming with hateful defiance.

 _What did they do with Sanford? And the usiner?_

Something had to have happened to both of them if whoever who kidnapped her had her here in the first place. Nyx knew that Sanford would tear Boston apart in a search for her, it was what he had done when the Institute had played this card almost a year ago.

 _The Institute._

Nyx bowed her head at that memory. Suddenly, despite the innate sense of panic that was swelling in her stomach, she felt an overpowering sensation of _weakness._ She felt weak that this was occurring. She felt like a defenseless thing, beckoning the call of someone else to bail her out.

 _I spit on this,_ the Deathclaw exposed her fangs in a rearing sneer, hanging from the chain bindings overhead. _I spit on every fathom of this._

The sound of steel crunching, and the heavy thud of restraint locks unclicking earned her attention. The angry reptile raised her snout, and blew a disgusted venting of steam from her nostrils to the north of the room.

 _I will not have it._

The light wasn't bright enough to blind her from a quick transition, but it was powerful to the degree that she still squinted. There was a hallway beyond the doorway, one of tile, metal and brickwork. She couldn't exactly see most of the details over the shoulders of the thing standing in the archway.

 _What_ is _that?_

The Deathclaw twitched at an unfamiliar feeling pinpricking against the back of her scaly skull.

It was just a taste of _fear._ Her pride could not shield that. Whatever was standing in the archway looked utterly ferocious.

Maybe once it had been what it smelt like, and vaguely resembled. She knew the scent anywhere, as encounters with its kind had been stained in her memory as wholly unpleasant experiences with each passing. It smelt of rotting meat, sulfur, motor oil and fungus spores. It was ugly, muscular, bulbous and green all over.

 _Super Mutant._

Except, there was something wrong with this Super Mutant. In fact, it was something unlike anything she had ever seen before.

The _creature_ (if it could even be called that) –waddled into the chamber on an uneven gate, and its steps were slow, and each rise of its legs, Nyx could discern the tinny whine of servo-joints and robotic augmetics upon the cold air. With each fall of its heel, Nyx could hear the slamming noise of metal-shod boots on the tiles.

The initially dim light source from the hallway became brighter and more blinding the closer the monster got. Its feet- concealed in hissing, augmetic boots of steel –rattled the floor of the room, each fall getting louder, and more pronounced.

 _Thunk, thunk, thunk… THUNK-!_

It lumbered to a halt right before where she was hanging. The Deathclaw's temperament spun circles in that moment, doing loops between enragement, terror and uncertainty. She must have looked comedic to crueler eyes, for the reptile leant back into her chains, and she peered at the grotesque mutant between her elbows with wide, golden eyes.

She realized that the light source was not coming from the hallway. The light was coming from the Super Mutant's _face._

-Or, at least, what was _covering_ its face.

"… _Mon dieu…_ " Nyx mumbled, finding purchase on the floor with her cloven heels. The chains rattled as she slipped her shoulders behind the curls of her horns. She winced as the spotlight beamed into and reflected off her facial complexion.

The Super Mutant's head and shoulders were completely sealed in rusting, scrap-compiled armor plating. The plates were laden with coppery veins of wires and conductor strands, pipes that coursed inside their leaden hides with quietly sloshing fluids splayed like vines up the Mutant's ribs and down its broad back. A power pack that whistled tiny, visible vents of steam hummed in its strapped place across and over the Mutant's shoulders. The vaguely draconic helmet bolted over its head was sealed with a spotlight canister, that cast a malicious, dreadfully still pillar of illumination on her almost accusingly.

If not for the ragged, hollow and muffled breaths of raggedy carbon wheezing out from the Super Mutant's curious headwear, Nyx would've been convinced that the creature was robotic in nature. It certainly was _partly_ of that mechanical womb.

 _I thought you weren't having this?_

The Deathclaw gasped under the gaze of this biomechanical horror. She saw to her chagrin that the creature's fat hands had similarly been changed to metal. They were a pair of robotic forearms, wired into the Mutant's very flesh, where coppery threads vanished into its green skin through scabbing, inflamed wounds.

 _I'm not having this at all,_ the Deathclaw snorted in insult as she faced the monster down, literally feeling her strength returning to her as a pooling, warm reservoir in her chest. _Eat my foot, creature of the abyss._

Nyx hauled on her chains and lifted her clawed feet off the floor. She kicked the Mutant square in the chest, swinging forwards and colliding with the exposed, green breast there.

There was a _crack!_ –as her heels shattered a pair of ribs. The Mutant stumbled back, its robotic limbs swinging outwards for purchase it could not find.

For a second, Nyx was satisfied with her assault. Her roar of rage echoed around the interior of whatever facility she was in, beating up and down the walls as a reptilian, serpentine shriek.

 _If these freaks believe they can use me for their amusement, they are sadly mistaken._

The Mutant was as big as her, and thus kept a similar degree of endurance. Broken bones or not, the kick was not nearly enough to render it out of action.

The spotlight wired into its face became brighter, the illumination reaching a crescendo until the very bulb within the canister flickered, and the light returned as not white, but a deep hue of _orange._

Now colored amber, Nyx grit her fangs as the Mutant released a terrible, metallic bellow. It was an indescribable sound, something made by a torture victim who could never escape life in an armored box.

 _It is most certainly accurate,_ the Deathclaw planted her heels as the monster lumbered towards her in a run, its heavy boots slamming into the tiled floor. _Yet another slave to morbid, human ingenuity._

Nyx lashed out with her bladed feet again, but this time, her defense was of a different means.

 _Perhaps the monsieur's techniques are not as shallow as I perceived._

Once in the past, Sanford had told her a story of how a band of Raiders had caught him in close combat. One of them was big, wrapped in cage armor, and was using a pair of serrated meat-cleavers.

Sanford had jumped onto the Raider's shoulders, wrapped his legs over his caged head, and had brought him down to the ground with his own body weight. It was a baffling move that had saved Sanford's life, long before he had met her. Nyx was quite larger than Sanford, but given the stature of her attacker, she figured that the weight ratios would even out.

 _Curious,_ Nyx thought rather civilly as she and the Mutant screamed at one another. The Deathclaw's thighs clenched over the armored giant's head, shoving the light canister and its scrap-face into her groin. _Normally, I only let Sanford put his face down there. Though, I suppose this isn't_ normal _by a longshot._

Feeling the Mutant's metal fingers grip her hips, Nyx knew that she didn't have much time. She glanced upwards at the ceiling, bunched her wrists, and released a quick grip on the chains wrapping over her cuffs.

 _Sanford was right,_ the chains shattered, causing a drizzle of bent links to rain like glitter across her and the Mutant's shoulders. _I_ am _really heavy. That asshole._

The Mutant roared in a hollow scream as it and the Deathclaw tumbled thunderously to the ground.

 _Isn't it always the same?_ Nyx was in no mood for semantics in her act of killing the beast, but it did at least stand in her mind for a good second as she prepared to rip its head off. _Once I get something down, it is as mon cher says; the 'jig' is up._ "

"-Now just wait a second there, my wild friend! Boys, if you will?"

 _Who in the fuck was that?_

The amber light in her face was twofold, and briefly, she wondered how it could be so when the only source of light was pinned underneath her and doomed for a quick death.

 _Not fair._

-The answer to that problem was simple.

There was a second Mutant that had lumbered into the room.

It was a duplicate of the thing she had against the floor, a robotically augmented green torso and legs with robotic hands and feet and a lantern-faced helmet. The striding titan didn't chance enough time for the Deathclaw to even blink. One moment, Nyx was looking up, and the next, a metal fist with the weight of a cannonball behind it was crashing into her face.

 ** _Thwack~!_** –the punch was so quick and powerful that she didn't even feel any pain. Everything just went blurry, and she couldn't feel her own neck.

The Deathclaw's mournful howl of defeat was silenced as she landed on her back, sprawling against the cold room's tiled floor, spreading a dissipating, white flower around her by disturbing the mist creeping everywhere.

Powerful, metal fingers clenched over the reptile's wrists. Nyx was hoisted onto her heels with a groan of metal and a whine of robotics. She lazily drooled, and looked at either side of herself, where she was greeted with a lantern-faced visage to the west _and_ east.

The Mutant she had tackled righted itself without any further commotion, save for the moans of its metal joints. The chamber had been filled with them in a flurry of motion. Two of the augmented Mutants held her aloft, and still more figures were coming into the chamber by the second.

 _Junkers,_ Nyx realized even as her mind swam. Conglomerate Frankenstein robots made from scavenged parts of multiple models. They were every shape and size, and they were innumerable. Ten of them, at least, standing at rigid attention (or sometimes simply floating) –in the archway and at the corners of the room.

They were obviously working in tandem with the Mutants, and now, that Nyx was unable to move, she looked at her captors with a scrutinizing, tired set of eyes to bring herself to yet _another_ realization.

 _The symbol._

The Mutants were all garbed in steely and black painted armor, and on the forehead of each one's helmet, just above the lantern bulbs, was the scrap-skull symbol she knew would be there.

 _The Assaultron assassins._

"-Well done, fellows! What a dapper twist of fate. Truly, a dapper one. Though, not without reason to stand; you _are_ as dexterous and mighty as they say you're supposed to be."

 _Isn't it about time I came face to face with this connard?_

Nyx growled and fought against the arms constricting her shoulders. She earned nothing more than a few hollow creaks of machinery, and some pain from the Mutants' bionic edges digging into her scales.

"You certainly put up a fight. Listen; that's good! That's very good, because that's why you're here! That's why you're here, and that's why I need you! Cheerio?"

 _Cheerio? What the hell._

Nyx quivered as she tried to curl her arms free of the Mutants' clasps. She snarled as a single, little human man stepped before her and into the glare from his minion's lantern-faces. The light played off his features, and lit up his attire and head completely. It revealed to her, that he was quite possibly the ugliest thing she had ever seen.

"So here we have come to stand. It's not the Scavenger, by far. I could not _hope_ to contain the Scavenger I'd bet! But I've got myself the next best thing." The man chortled, pairing his spindly fists on his hips. Batteries buzzed from his body, and bionics clicked from a particular port on his face. "Now, just to make sure; you _are_ the Scavenger's _pet_ are you not?"

Nyx almost drenched him in a cascading torrent of vulgarity. His words so angered her that she turned crimson even through her scales. Her teeth were clenched together so hard that they threatened to crack.

"I'll take your infuriated expression as a confirmation." The man smiled. "I'm aware of several most preposterous rumors about you. They say a lot of things out in the wasteland, you know? They say, that you're the Scavenger's pet, and that much I believe, but also…"

Nyx snarled as a hand reached out towards her nose. The reptile tugged violently against the Mutants holding her, and the man was just able to snap his wrist back in time before her chops clapped over where it had been.

"- _that you're ferocious._ " He mumbled with consideration, dusting his hand off with a few metallic claps on his chest. "They say you're cunning, they say you're quick, they say you and your master sew legends out here in Boston. But, they also say that you…"

The man leant forwards, and spoke so that his voice was but a mere whisper.

"… _speak._ "

Nyx was able to shield herself just a bit beneath the feral rage obscuring her features. She never looked more animalistic than when she was angry, and as long as she offered him nothing, did she appear no different than any other enraged Deathclaw. She still snarled at him, though, and this made him smile.

"You at least understand English. Why, golly! How else would you have known to be so _angry_ when I said you were the Scavenger's pet? Ain't that a doozy, eh, boys?"

Nyx whipped her head to both of her captors when she began to hear a tiny, almost automated growl from beneath both of their lantern-faces. She realized with a pitting twist in her gut that the Super Mutants were chuckling. Their laughter didn't sound natural, even for their kind. It sounded robotic. It sounded _forced._ She wondered about that.

"Yes yes, see, you can't hide anything from me here." The mysterious man hopped on his own heels giddily. "This is my business, and my home, but it is most certainly my _passion!_ My passion is the art of what I do! The _caps_ those fools from the Outside give me to pursue it! Think about it, what will the caravans say as they double their trips to see me? They will say: " _Look! Another has been thrown into the grand arenas! Look! It is the Scavenger's Dragon! It is the latest wonder presented by, the_ Junker!"

Nyx stared at the Junker incredulously, lost in a long span of shocked silence at his presentation.

" _Yes,_ all fine, all fine." The Junker sighed, mimicking the motions of wiping a tear from his one organic eye. "But I think we need to understand exactly what we're dealing with here. I mean, all I have are rumors, and your… _lack_ of word."

He seemed to be thinking for a good while, as evidenced by his stilled speech. The Junker hummed, snapped his fingers with a whistle of metal, and pointed at the door of the chamber.

"Boys, I'm not paying you just for the tabloid coverage. Bring my friend outside. We're running a _trial!_ " The Junker clapped his hands. "We're running a trial, to see the _Scavenger's Dragon_ in action! You have no idea how lucky you are."

Nyx hissed when he reached out to her again, and retracted.

"You don't just get a front row seat; you _are_ the attraction! The early access, sponsored exhibition! You'll wow them, I'm sure of it, especially with the trials I have in mind!" The Junker finally did touch her, and his fingers were cold, like steel, which, they actually were. The Deathclaw grunted and wiggled backwards into the Mutant's arms, her claws digging trenches into the tiled floor beneath her. She wanted to kick him too like she had his goon. "You're going to change everything. Everything indeed." The Junker chuckled, looking at his own hand as if he had dipped it in gold. "…But in the meantime. Throw her in the pit for the trials."

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-


	8. Chapter 8 - Helios

**VIII**

 **Helios**

* * *

The feral ghoul actually left a wavering trail of steam in its wake as it fell. The crimson glazed, carbon energies wrapping Sanford's blade did little to dim themselves in the din of the night. They produced a hellish hue across the room in accordance with the killing they helped to commit.

The monster didn't have the life within it left to offer even a confused gurgle as it died. It merely slouched from Sanford's presence and folded on the crumbling sill of the window, twitching, its severed throat hissing repugnantly in the dark.

 _This city's full of things trying to eat me._

The scavenger clicked his tongue and thumbed the rune on his energy cutlass' hilt, watching with a diaspora of annoyance as the dark upper story of the building was swathed in shadow once again.

 _No more distractions._

Kneeling in the sill to the opposite left of the one with the ghoul's corpse, Sanford breathed out his mouth to filter the horrid, acrid odor permeating from the irradiated creature's body. The smell was all the more powerful due to accumulation. The room was actually laden with eight other ghouls that Sanford had run into. All on the pretext of finding a good observation spot. Perhaps, Sanford should've known better.

 _Nah,_ the scavenger grumbled under his breath, using the scope on his rifle to oversee the nighttime world outside and ahead. _All within parameters, I'd say._

The parking lot and the street dividing it from the property he was on were both vacant, as far as he could initially tell. The sickly green of his scope put much of Boston into clarity despite dusk's blanketing. The lot was filled with rusted, broken and ruined automobiles. They were all like a pond of dilapidated metal, with varying roof heights, body types and lengths. Sanford could still close his eyes and remember what this sight _would've_ looked like had it been before the bombs.

 _Brightly colored sedans, minivans and SUVs. Reds, greens, blues, golds and silvers and blacks and-_

He shook his head.

 _All gone now anyway. Focus._

The buildings of the Helios Mall oversaw the parking lot highly. They were colossal rectangular bailey's that loomed like boxy shadows in the night. They were riddled with cracks, crumbled walls and dark windows. Observing these traits was like seeing the individual ulcers and parasites across the hide of some gigantic corpse.

 _You wouldn't think the place was being controlled by some deranged sociopath with a robot army._

Sanford lowered his scope, and picked out movement among the cars of the parking lot below.

 _…_ _Or wouldn't you?_

There were pillars of light that were flickering between the wrecked sedans and burnt trucks. Cones of whiteness were stabbing into the night, and playing havoc with his eyes in the forms of armies of strange shapes. These were cast from the lights glancing the hulks of the myriad vehicles wrecked in their parking spots.

 _Searchlights,_ Sanford initially considered, his nose twitching as he forgot to breathe out his mouth for a split second. _Fucking smells in here._

He cast a disparaging glare back at the twisted, steaming bodies littering the upper floor of the building behind him.

 _I miss that suit and its filtration systems. Maybe I should find an air freshener and hang it over my neck until I can get that suit back._

 _If_ he ever got the suit back.

Thinking about it made his stomach hurt. Losing a piece of equipment like that was catastrophic. Sanford had been out here for over _eleven years,_ and he could count on one hand the number of times he'd been able to find working parts for a suit of Power Armor.

 _It is what it is._

Sanford tried not to think about it, and focused on the parking lot. What he saw next made his heart drop into his feet.

 _…_ _What the fuck is that thing?_

It possessed a humanoid bulkiness and a feral gait that were both easily recognizable. There were lumbering arms, big legs, and tiny heads. Even through the tint of his scope, Sanford could see that they were big, muscular, ugly and _green._

But there was something very off about these Super Mutants.

 _There's something on their faces, and their bodies, and their legs and hands and-_

Sanford blinked and lowered his gun.

 _They're augmented._

He'd never seen anything like it. True, Super Mutants (at least, the ones who weren't completely board-of-wood-level dumb) –had some level of understanding bionics and robotic medical technique, no Mutant was capable of something like _this._

These Super Mutants were coated in plated exoskeletal armor, layered with coppery wires, pipes and synthetic straps. Powerpacks were wired into their backs, and helmets bearing lantern-bulbs for visors were stitched, bolted and tethered into the Mutant's very neck-flesh. Their feet were covered in iron, cloven boot, and their hands had been surgically removed and replaced with bladed, three-fingered claws.

 _That symbol._

They bore the underbitten skull icon on their helm's foreheads, and one of them had a second, larger of the symbols emblazoned over its bare chest in the form of a black tattoo. They walked as a pair, sweeping the spotlights that made their faces east and west with robotic patience and organization.

 _Sentries. You're telling me this whackjob has robots_ and _Mutants?_

Sanford was grim as he slunk back into the darkness and worked his way to street level again.

 _I can't fight them._

Sanford no longer possessed the indomitable steadfastness of his X-01 suit. Without it, if he were to suffer an impact from a gun, his likelihood of avoiding injury was non-existent. Super Mutants were punishment sponges to begin with. There had been times where Sanford had shot them in the _head,_ and they still had shrugged off the injury.

Super Mutants could be shot multiple times and still remain an active threat. Sanford couldn't afford to get hit _once,_ and the change of pace that came with that caused him to falter.

 _Just keep your head down._

Sanford breathed, and checked the charge on his gun's battery. He slowly moved towards the parking lot, letting the Bostonian cool air touch his cheeks as a slight breeze bustled down the street.

 _Even if they're big, green killing machines, who are augmented, and ten times as strong as you, and outnumber you; you got this, Tobs, you got this._

Sanford's eye twitched.

 _Jesus fuck._

Dead hedges ringed the exterior of the parking lot. In the dark, they offered much more concealment than they would have during the day. He crouched behind a strip of them and peered with wide eyes through the gnarling patterns of finger-like roots and twigs.

The parking lot was huge. It had to be. Helios was once one of the largest shopping centers in the city. The amount of cars layering through the lot were uncountable, and now that Sanford was closer, he could see that his Super Mutant friends weren't alone.

 _Oh my god._

There were spaced out pillars of light _everywhere._ They moved in singles, pairs or in trios down the various lanes and clear paths wedging through the sea of automobiles. The entire lot was being patrolled by these things.

 _And Diamond's radio sounded like they were uncertain of anything going on here. Those disingenuous fuckers._

Sanford licked his dry lips and looked down at his hands. They were trembling over the stock and handle of his gun.

 _I almost forgot what worrying about bullets felt like._

He wasn't about to have a repeat of the Institute. If he risked death in that, then so be it.

 _Here it goes._

Twigs snapped and branches rustled. The scavenger slipped through a gap in the dead ferns and ran in a hunched motion across the parking lot. He reached the first row of cars and fell to a hushed kneel behind the blown-out carcass of a convertible. The car whispered as he pressed his shoulder into it, almost like it was attempting to mutter to him and warn him of the danger he was quickly becoming entangled in.

 _You're telling me, buddy._

Sanford peered over the car's hood, and darted back down when the duo of Mutants got closer.

Their footfalls were heavy, iron sounds. _Thud, thud, thud-_ they went. Sanford could hear the tell-tale whine of servo-joints that were surgically bolted into their knees and calves. One of the spotlights spawning from their heads swept over the car he was hiding behind. Sanford hadn't felt such a chill like the one this presentation caused run down his spine in a very long time.

 _Keep it together, Tobs._

The night's breeze whistled overhead. The thudding footsteps of the Mutants got closer and closer.

 _Move._

Sanford crouched low and shifted position. He treated his movements as he would during a combat situation. The goal was to keep one's head and shoulder level down, and flit between places of thick, heavy cover when the enemy's line of site faltered.

Firefights were always like that. It was all about the reliance upon human instinct for self-preservation. You simply _knew_ that the people you were shooting at wouldn't run senselessly out into the open. You simply _knew_ that they would keep their heads down for the same reason you were. You knew they had to pause, reload, and the like just as you had to.

Those were all opportunities to move, to flank, to gain the advantage. The sweeps of the Mutants' spotlight-faces were exactly the same.

 _Use the dark. The dark is your friend._

Sanford navigated up the lot. From car to car. He ducked behind wheel wells and hoods whenever lights passed his positions, and he avoided the alleys where Mutant teams were walking.

He passed closely to a patrol of them at one point. It was a duo of the Mutants, their iron heels thudding down the cracked pavement, their shoulders hunched, with hauntingly cold breaths rasping through the metals of their robotic headwear.

 _That armor is part of them._

Sanford knew enough about bionics to judge that from his hiding place behind a flattened station wagon. He could see the coppery wires that snaked through and under the Mutants' green skin, and where their flesh was inflamed and adhered at the edges of the plates protecting their necks, shoulders, legs and backs. The powerpacks were probably affixed to their skeletal structures. If there was anything left of their heads or faces, the strange, pyramid-like helmets sprawling over their skulls hid it. The lantern bulbs wired into their faces were bright and blinding.

 _What's been done to these creeps that they'd listen to someone who_ wasn't _a Mutant? I know whoever this is isn't one of them. This is all too complex for a Mutant. Too complex, too organized, too-_

Sanford winced as a blinding pillar of light landed right in his face.

 _Oh no._

Sanford held his breath and swiftly ducked back behind the car's trunk. Still, he heard the Mutant produce a tinny noise in the silence of the night. It was a rasping sound of inclination and surprise. The thing metallically snarled, and he could hear its bootsteps thundering across the pavement.

 _Move move move!_

The light that was fixed over his position changed color. It was now an enflamed amber hue, and the bulb marking the Mutant's face had turned into a blaring, offended shade of crimson.

Sanford whisked away with skill behind a neighboring pair of trucks. He did not stick around long enough or closely enough to see what the Mutants did when they reached where he'd been hiding. Judging by the lack of any sort of alarms, howls and gunshots, he assumed that they had thought nothing of the disturbance further. In the dark, panting, the scavenger peered back down the lot from a new hiding spot, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the distant spotlight change from an enraged amber, to a docile white.

The cones flipped to face the south, and they grew in distance as the patrolling pair continued on their route.

 _Close call._

Sanford gazed north. Helios was right in front of him. The main buildings of the complex, and the central visitor plaza. Once, before the war, this place had been beautiful, and bustling with activity. Now it was a damned graveyard. The plaza's trees and bushes had rotted away, the cobble walkways were cracked and matted. A large fountain in the plaza's center was nothing but a large, inactive dust bowl. A pair of swan statues presided over the plaza to the left and right. Both were crumbling, one to the point where it was headless, almost acting as a portent of doom for the encroaching intruder.

 _Stupid bird._

Sanford crossed a street and hid behind a strain of rubble birthing from one of the statue's pedestals. He scanned the darkness of the plaza and listened for anything that could point to a nearby threat.

 _No Mutants at least, but that doesn't mean that-_

…Voices. Distant voices, ones that echoed with confidence out into the night.

Whoever was bold enough to get that animated out here with all these monsters lumbering about had to be important. Only a boss shouted in the presence of his goons.

 _Lemme' see your face, you kidnapping piece of shit._

Sanford advanced through the plaza, magnetizing his senses to the voices. There were several people, judging by the variation he faintly detected. Men, women, and a good deal of them too.

 _Who the hell are you people?_

Sanford vaulted the rim of the ruined fountain, and he crouched inside the empty water basin, peering over the bowl trim to stare at the plaza's north.

One of Helios' main entrances was there. It was once a wall of glass with rows of similarly glass doors barring its lower half. It had all shattered and bee ruined. A towering face of bolted scrape metal and stockade wood replaced the glass in its concrete and metal shell of the building.

Burned in black paint across this barrier's flesh was the skull symbol of whoever had claimed fealty over this place. It was the largest example of it Sanford had seen so far.

 _At least I know I'm in the right place._

He saw the people next. There was a congregation of them, numbering more than ten. Sanford hunched lower. He realized that they were caught in light, and he saw one of the Mutants patiently stalking right behind them, standing two heads taller, and yet no more imposing over them for it.

"-that's where you're wrong, see? Further you go back to your place, people get _soft._ It's the softness that's killing the east. You should take some examples from the Skulltakers! Pure rage got them where they are." –Spoke a man.

"I speak for the entire gathering when I say that no one likes a kiss-ass." Another grunted.

"I'm fine with it." A third, gruff sounding male chuckled. "Good to hear that my reputation's preceding me. Those caps? They're going to good use here. Everything back by me'll be dead soon and I can make you all happy."

"That's erroneous and cocky."

"You say that about everything, you corps'-wannabe."

"People here argue too much." A woman sighed. "Where's your etiquette?"

"See?" The first speaker laughed. "Easterners; little teddy bears who are too busy licking their own nuts to make any headway."

The tallest man in the procession was almost as much a monster as the Mutant sentry that was trailing at his heels.

 _Raider._

An important Raider, at that. He had a shaven head, tanned skin, narrow eyes and a strong, defined jawline that flowed into a pair of ears laden with hook and loop piercings. Tattoos designed after vines of twisting, black script riddled his cranium, his cheeks and even his throat. Armor plating made from scavenged military standard, leather and parts of automobiles created an almost insectoid cocoon over his muscular body. A beard that flowed down to his chest sat as a dirty affliction marring his image. He was flanked by two bodyguards clothed in leather and crimson colored pads, with visors shielding their faces.

 _Looks like a bruiser._

Sanford noted the melee weapon slung over the man's back plating. It was a two-handed hammer, weaponized via coils wringing up and down its handle, ending in an obvious propulsion vent welded into the rear of its spiked head.

 _Let's make a note right now to_ not _get hit by that thing._

The other people in the group were less impressive individually, but carried their own points of worry for the scavenger. A woman clad in black and silver colored infantry armor strode between two similarly bedecked soldiers on either side of herself. She was darkly skinned, with pursed lips and serpentine eyes. Her hair was almost the same shade as her face, and thus from a distance, in the night, she resembled some kind of reptilian creature, caught in the glare of her Mutant escort's lantern.

 _Who are those people?_

Sanford's eyes locked to another pair of people walking just in front of them.

 _Gunners._

Two of them, bedecked in drab colored infantry armor and fatigues. One man and one woman, clean shaven, dirt-stained mockeries of the United States Army, complete with white stars across the breastplates and helmets. Sanford hated them, and they hated him.

 _I should've figured that they had a hand in this._

Much like Sanford had every single Raider tribe in Boston gunning for him, the Gunners themselves had a special place for him on their shit list. Sanford had damaged the Gunners irrevocably over the years. He had killed hundreds of them, destroyed their robots, blew up their ammunition dumps and ambushed their camps. In the last few conflicts that had sprouted up between them and the Minutemen, Sanford had always invariably wound up becoming involved on behalf of the latter. The Gunners had been trying to kill Sanford for years, he should've found it as no surprise that they'd enlisted help.

 _If that's even what this is._

There was a final, notable man in that procession that Sanford did not have a comment or thought for aside from blank curiosity. The figure was garbed in a trench coat, with a black, glinting fedora topping his head, and a pair of dark army boots obscuring his legs up to the ankle.

For a moment, Sanford was reminded of the half-robotic Robert Cannery from Diamond City, the self-employed investigator that he had rescued from the jaws of mercenaries under the employ of his father's Insitute.

The figure carried that same mysterious flavor with him. The air practically radiated in this visible stench of relation. Sanford couldn't quite put his finger on it.

 _Some Raider warlord and his goons, two gunners, three mercs, a mutant and some guy with a trenchcoat. That's some combination._

Steel hissed and hydraulics complained into the night. The stockade wall sealing the interior of the mall from the plaza apparently possessed a ramp-gate. It lowered from previously unseen edges in the metal with a rush of gusting steam.

"Let's get down to some killing." The big Raider boss clapped his filthy, dirt-smeared hands together. "You say this Scav's got a Deathclaw? And now our boy has it?"

"Quite." One of the Gunners said. "I wasn't certain I believed it myself."

 _Nyx._

Sanford was tempted to stand and open fire on the group. The ramp closed soon after, and they and the Mutant escorting them vanished inside the mall.

 _Son of a bitch._

Sanford ran over to the barricade, seemingly uncaring of being spotted now that he had received so obvious a hint of his correct assumption about this place. He stood before the sealed conglomerate wall, spreading his arms and looking up at its taller height.

 _God damn it. I can't open it._

He could probably blast through it, but he couldn't have the entire mall alert to his presence. Now things were at a deeper angle. There wasn't just one person involved in this anymore. There were Gunners, Raiders, and other factions that Sanford didn't even know the identities of.

 _I need a way in._

Sanford backed up, and cast his eyes to the west, where an alleyway leading from the plaza obscured, but did not veil something important from his eyes.

 _Now there's something,_ Sanford smiled as he turned his body to face the aforementioned angle. _Hope nobody minds if I borrow it._

 ** _Clang~!_** –rattled the ladder as Sanford smacked it against the rim of a nearby rooftop. The aluminum creaked and edged as he handworked up the rungs. There was a part of Sanford's mind that was reeling with the possibility of the thing snapping like a twig and sending him tumbling back down to the pavement.

 _Ignore it. Move, Tobs._

Sanford reached the building's roof, and hopped over the rim edge with a hasty grunt. The gravel of the rooftop crunched under his heels as he quietly moved forwards and swept the area for threats. Everything seemed as still as a rooftop should've been, more or less. Bulky, silvery ventilation boxes acted as a quick maze, but as Sanford edged his way to the western side of the roof, he found what he was looking for.

 _Not too far of a drop,_ the scavenger grinned as he slung his rifle across his hip, and armed himself with his energy cutlass. _I didn't even have to turn you on, baby girl._

Sanford wedged the tip of his blade forwards. _Clink~!_ –went the bolt, and he kicked the vent cover off with a swift jolt of his boot.

 _Better than taking the front door._

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

The first thing that Nyx smelled with soil. Wet soil. It was a permeated scent that one got when they rammed their face into a puddle of mud, pulled back, and lathered in the surreal aftershock of the fact.

 _Mon dieu, my head…_

The reptile snorted, and she could feel the dusty clouds kicking up off the ground beneath her snout.

 _What a beautiful dream that was._

The Deathclaw's golden eyes fluttered open, and her tongue lapped over her exposed fangs. They tasted like dirt.

 _I saw it. I saw them. Emeraude. Greener than I have ever seen. Sanford…_

Nyx dug her fingers into the soil, and wrenched her arms until the scales on their interiors ached from being dragged on the ground. The prior feelings of warmth that she had coveted were lost upon her, even as she made to embrace the man that was not really there with her. Still, she was so drunken in this moment of apprehensive stupor that she continued the mental debate with herself nonetheless.

 _Qu'est-ce que je ressens maintenant?_

What _was_ she feeling right now? It was an excellent question, because she really didn't know herself.

On one hand, she was tired, and in pain and she wanted to go back to sleep. But she was also hungry and thirsty for some reason, and on top of that she was experiencing a mixture of being angry, happy, fearful, and was even suffering from the slight touch of a libido.

None of the last few hours made much sense, but Nyx doubted that her newest house hosts cared much for these individualistic concerns.

 _Hosts._

The reptile's teeth audibly produced a grinding sound as she rolled her jaws together.

 _Those connards._

Her ribs stung alongside her mandible and her breast. She didn't need a reminder of the fact that these pains were due to the top-off beating she'd received in that cell.

 _I will kill them. All of them._

Nyx dug her fingers back into the dirt, but this time it was for the purposes of steadying herself. Ignoring the complaints of her arm muscles, the reptile shoved herself off the cold, dusty ground and shook her head with vehement effort.

 _At least, I pourrait continuer cet effort. Now where am I?_

Shaded darkness was the first thing she saw. A sea of black cascading with faint, ghostly wisps of steam.

 _Maybe this is hell._

-But then Nyx heard the _ca-clunk –_ sound of locks releasing, and light flooded into the chamber like liquid silver.

 _Ah, perhaps not yet._

There was a racket upon the air, that coincided with and yet was entirely separate from the scream of the ramp-gate's joints. Even as the metal wall in front of her lowered itself more and more, she could hear the secondary disturbance all the more prevalently.

 _Is that…_

Nyx held up a claw to shield her long face from the streams of light. The gate snapped thickly onto a dusty, earthen ground beyond, and the joint hinges screeched as they locked into place. The at-first faint noise she had been perceiving was now in an uproar.

… _cheering?_

Drunkenly, the Deathclaw's heels rattled the ramp as she stepped forwards, blindly lumbering out into the unknown on the pretense of escaping the racket. Her efforts were futile in such respects, as they only carried her into their _center_ and not to their fringes.

Her eyes adjusted rather quickly though, and the drugs flushed into her system let known their temporary hosting by soon banishing their effects upon her. Nyx's gasp was a pathetic, panicked thing. She did not believe she had ever sounded so afraid before in her life.

But the presence around her was staggering enough for her to allow that to come to pass.

" ** _Coming up from the center Gate number 1 is a colossal charnel-house of destructive capability and dreadful capacity._** "

Nyx staggered off the edge of the ramp and onto the sandy ground ahead. The crowd jeered and clapped. The noise was thunderous, and it reverberated across the spanning ring with ease.

 _Mon dieu._

Separated from her by a mesh of iron netting, and suspended atop a ring of plated scrap metal, the crowd numbered well past a hundred little human beings. They were lined in rows of seats, swivel chairs, park benches and all manner of gathered sitting apparatus. They were organized in suspended rows. Storefronts on a second story ring had been converted into boxes. Protective railing walls had been shortened or in some cases completely removed. Areas that had served as walkways along the mall's second story level were transformed into bleacher rows where tens of filthy, poorly dressed people cheered and pumped fists and threw beer bottles against the mesh.

The noise was overwhelming, and the spotlights beaming down at her from the scrap-dome's roof were blinding. To Nyx, it was straight out of a nightmare.

 _Maybe I'm still dreaming._

" ** _Weighing in at approximately one helluvva' lot of tons, and sporting an attitude like no other, the Praetorian Box brings to you; The Scavenger's Dragon~!_** " –Erupted a booming voice that echoed across the arena, suspended orally by the beating resonation of a loudspeaker, and vox amplifiers installed around the premises.

 _I don't weigh_ tons.

Grumbling, and placing a self-conscious claw on her belly, Nyx scanned the crowds with wide eyes, until they fell upon the very direct north and center of the ring.

" ** _Ladies and gentlemen from the north, from the Commonwealth and on the road East; feast your eyes upon the Boston Terror! Beast of the Infamous Scavenger~!_** "

The crowd went wild. They hooted, screamed and roared. Nyx flinched when a bottle ricocheted off the protective mesh directly over the gate arch she had exited from.

 _Are they speaking of Sanford?_

The reptile blinked at the idea. She knew that Sanford was influential in the Commonwealth's steering, and that people knew of him, but all of this? This seemed…

Nyx scanned the crowd again, and refocused on where the loudspeaker was coming from.

 _-Extreme._

Risen highly to view across the entirety of the sand-filled arena pit was a box placed atop a scrap stilt. It almost looked like some kind of junk spire, and yet it carried with it a pristine air of corrupt royalty. Such an atmosphere spliced through the common stenches of groveling peasantry that made Raiders and ganger scum the lowlives they were. It was the most well-constructed thing in the entire arena. In fact, the bolted over plates that made the spire's flesh seemed to be polished where everything else was grimy and matted. Nyx held no doubts that such was the result of efforts that were purposeful.

 _How endearing of these people,_ Nyx hissed under breath. She did not turn around when the gate she had exited expectedly creaked and moaned. Sand whispered from the ramp's edges until it rose completely and clapped shut, sealing her in the arena. _At least they have offered a grande entrée._

" ** _Coming in at high and loud speeds from Gate 2 is the Robotic Menace._** "

 _Oh no._

Nyx winced, and immediately her gaze fell upon the western flank of the arena.

"- _Ha-haaaa~! Yessss~! The Robotic Menace of Democracy and Commie'-ass-fuckin' dopeness! Bathe in my red-blooded American glaze, you motherless plebians!_ "

" _Usiner?_ " Nyx blinked.

The Deathclaw felt her tail swaying behind her as her emotions nose-dived into a mixture of apprehension, fascination and horror. She quaintly stared as a very familiar, orb-shaped robot levitated out of a gate that looked just like hers, and spun circles in the air in the center of the large ring.

Hancock hadn't looked this esteemed and excited in a very long time. The Mr. Gutsy was eating up the attention like a good sponge did a shallow puddle of water. The crowd cheered, cursed and threw bottles and junk against the mesh nets, but Hancock was undeterred. He sliced the air with his buzzsaw, made salutes with his claw, and revved his thruster ports.

"-The _Han's_ in the house, you crème-brulee eatin' sonsofbitches!" He shouted, laughing as some of the overhead spotlights whirred and focused their beams directly onto his chassis, where their light glinted and reflected from the drab paint.

 _He has gone insane,_ the Deathclaw thought. _Attends un minute; that happened long before tonight._

" _Usiner~!_ " Nyx called over the commotion, stepping towards him and across the distance. "What in the hell is going on~?"

" _Lizard-Cakes~!_ " Hancock whirled around, and threw all three of his arms up in the air. "They put you in the ring too, eh?"

" _Ring? Usiner,_ " Nyx and he closed their distances, she had to bow her horned head to attempt and speak with the robot. "-have we not been kidnapped against our will?"

" _Kidnapped?_ More like forcibly reduced to _vacation status!_ " Hancock cackled, gesturing to the surrounding arena with his buzzsaw. "This is my kinda' place! That Junker fellow dropped us off in a- are ya' ready? – _A gladiator arena~! Ha-haaa~!_ My childhood dream has seen recognition! Now I get to kill people, and _get paid for it! Haaaa~!_ "

"Y-You never _had_ a childhood." Nyx stammered childishly. "-And, _usiner,_ gladiators are not _paid_ for their efforts!"

"What was that? I couldn't hear ya' over the sound of my new fanbase screaming their balls off! _I love you too, you ugly fuckers~! Who wants to see the Han's sprocket-pump~?_ "

" _I said gladiators are not paid for that they do!_ "

" _What~?_ "

" _Gladiators are forced warrior-slaves~!_ " Nyx shrieked, her large claws producing crunching noises as they formed into fists. "- _Do you not understand what is happening? We've been kidnapped to be entertainment attractions! We kill, until_ we're _killed, and that's the end of it!_ _Caput! Finie! Utilise et ensuite elimine~!_ "

"…So," Hancock noticeably paused, and glanced around the arena with two of his ocu-lenses. He sounded dubious all of a sudden. "…what you're saying is; they aren't unionized?"

" _Ughhhhh~! Usiner~!_ " Nyx clapped a claw over the robot's chassis and hoisted the flailing machine into the air. She was so angry at the moment that she could've ripped him in two, and she almost did exactly that.

" ** _Ladies and gentlemen, the Praetorian Box presents; The Scavenger's Gutsy~! Robot from Hell!_** **"** –The box announcer's voice bounced across the dome chamber. The crowd howled yet again, the seats fluctuating with the movement of bodies as if they were a collective surface of dirty liquid.

"-' _Robot from Hell'…?_ " Hancock had just been raising his buzzsaw to clip into Nyx's face, but now the machine lowered all of his limbs, and seemed to sit in Nyx's hand, thinking, for a good while. "…My…. _gladiator title?_ "

"You of all beings on this god-forsaken planet would _rejouir_ at this…" Nyx lidded her eyes and snorted at him.

" _I'm the Robot from Hell, baby~!_ " Hancock cried, pumping his arms out in exasperation. " _Yes! Yesssss~! Ha! And what are you, Lizard-Lick? Emperor Ceaser's Scaly Poodle~?_ "

"You _fils de pute'._ "

" ** _Brought to you at much expense of the Patron; The Junker presents the limited event, exclusive Power Hour._** "

Nyx and Hancock similarly took their glares off one another looked back at the surrounding crowd.

"Ya' know, deep down, somewhere in that freakishly ugly heart of yours," Hancock hissed to her sharply. "-I think you're _pumped_ about this!"

"I assure you," The Deathclaw opened her fingers and let the machine clatter onto the ground at her feet. "I am anything _but._ "

The crowd began to mellow almost as soon as the eruptive outroar had cast its shadow over the ring. Though she struggled to view through the glare of the spotlights above, Nyx stepped forwards and stared with malice up at the top of the Praetorian Box overseeing the arena. Through an observatory slot high up in the spire, she could see him, the Patron.

It was the Junker, and he had an audience up there with him.

" ** _As you all know, the Praetorian Box is only made possible through the productions of our esteemed Patron. Northerners, Easterners and those few cowboys with us,_** " –A few hoots and cries from the back of the stands in the dome. "- ** _Give it up for, the Junker._** "

Sporadic applause met this proclamation, but mostly it was more drunken screeches and howls. These people were animals, Nyx knew that already. Raider tribes, gangers and people not native to the Commonwealth. She didn't have to stare at the stands long to pick out the gang tattoos and markings on their dirty skins.

"So where're the victims?" Hancock zipped beside her, aiming his Plasma Gun around the ring.

"I expect whatever we will face will be arriving soon." Nyx swallowed, offering him a quick eye.

The Junker was fully alight in the glare of the lanterns above, and now, without the darkness, and his minions kicking her ass, Nyx could fully appreciate the inhumanity of what it was they faced.

"Friends, visitors," The Junker's cool voice rebounded as he held out a hand to silence the jostling masses. "-I bid you welcome to the Helios Arena."

"Hm. Looks like the San of the Ford was right after all." Hancock grunted, turning his attention up to the box.

"Did you really doubt him?" Nyx mumbled.

"Not even for a second." One of his lenses whipped about to the crowds. "This place is fuckin' whacked."

"You have suffered more rescue missions under _monsieur_ than I have. How long until something explodes and Sanford gets us out of here?" Nyx huffed.

"Holy crap-balls, are you actually asking me for an estimate on the ass-kicking?"

" _Oui._ "

"Hmm." Hancock bobbed a bit in his levitation. "Won't be long at all."

"Over the last few days," The Junker spoke to the crowds, not even casting a glance down at the subjects he tortured below in the ring. "I have transformed your lives. With each and every Praetorian Boxed show, I change just a little bit of how you all think, and how you all live."

A long pause was born after this. The Junker swept an organic eye, and a whirring, silvery bionic one about the arena. He seemed to take pleasure in this moment of gripping audacity. The Patron festooned himself with delusions of his importance, smiling on cold lips, grinning with daggered, jester's teeth.

 _This connard is out of his mind,_ the Deathclaw realized.

"The robot trials were interesting," The Junker continued, now firmly fixing his gaze upon her and Hancock. "and the beast matches were vigorous and bloody. Let us not also forget…" He grinned even wider. "- _the Dirt Rod tribe._ "

-A sickly murmur of chuckles bounced around the arena.

"They made fine gladiators, all of them." The Junker clicked his tongue, the noise snapping like the length of a whip due to the vox broadcasters he was hooked up to. "But the remnants of whatever families may be left in Boston are not suitable anymore. As the north changes, and the Skulltakers expand, so too do my goals, and, I would hope, all of yours as well."

"The fuck does this guy think he is? Mussolini?" Hancock growled. "- _Hey!_ Dirtbag! I don't mean to shit on your douche-sprinkling parade, but I'm a killing machine! And I'm not a _patient_ killing machine! Where're the mobs of nameless pawns that I get to buzzsaw in the nuts? Or the ferocious, man-eating animals I get to rectally skewer? 'Cause right now, all I see is some fat, egotistical turd with a self-importance complex and a lack of respect for anything modeling decency! I don't know whether to salute you or piss on your mother's shoes!"

Some people in the crowd laughed, some cheered, others howled at the challenge. Nyx actually grinned in reaction herself. She took pleasure in how red this _Junker_ became as he stood up there in his little Praetorian Box.

"You dragged our asses in here for a gladiator match!" Hancock continued, pointing his buzzsaw arm at the box. "Well, where's the fuckin' show~?"

Nyx frowned. The crowd cheered and erupted.

" _Usiner,_ " She snapped, bearing her fangs at him. "is not the idea to focus on _escape,_ and not participation?"

" _Oh no! The crowd's too loud, Lizard-Buns, I can't hear ya'!_ " Hancock cackled.

"The Scavenger's _pets_ desire a gladiator match!" The Junker snapped quickly, regaining the arena's focus. "Then that is what we shall give them! _Podcaster,_ begin the trials."

"- ** _You heard him, folks, the_** **trials** ** _are at hand._** "

The Junker blinked down at the arena below him, stepped off the edge of the box, and vanished inside. In his place, on a pair of wobbling, thick tread suspensions, a cylindrically shaped machine growled into position, a pair of round speakers protruding via pipes where its arms should've been.

 _The announcer is a RoboBrain?_ The Deathclaw snorted. _I should've known._

" ** _Each of our contestants will be tested to their very extreme limits._** " The dome containing the robot's pulsing, gray-colored brain leveled downwards on dedicated support sprockets. A central, robotic eye that glowed neon green regarded her and Hancock in judgmental silence, before Podcaster continued. " ** _The trials are reserved for The Junker's most promising gladiatorial contestants. If they can survive the Obstacle Course, the Hazard Course, and the Survival Course; then, well folks, they just might be destined for the Heaven's Arena!_** "

The crowd burst into commotion once again.

"Heaven's Arena? _Fuck you, buddy,_ I'm goin' straight to _hell!_ " Hancock ranted. "'Cause I'm; _The Robot from Heeelllllll~!_ "

"You may be in a position of power now," Nyx called defiantly up to the box, her voice ringing through the noise of the arena. "but it will not last, _connards._ "

" ** _Have it at folks; here comes the first part of our grand event, sit back, grab a hotdog and smell the napalm._** "

"- _Hell yeah,_ I fuckin' _love_ napalm!" Hancock cackled.

" ** _Designed by the Junker to the dot to root out the weak and proclaim the strong; let's get ready, for the Obstacle Course of Helios Arena._** "

The ground began to tremble, and Nyx could already feel the encroaching pit of dread in her belly.

 _Sanford,_ she thought. _Whatever you're doing; do hurry._

"Holy _bitch-cakes,_ look at the size of that drill!" She heard Hancock laugh.

" ** _Begin!_** "

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-


	9. Chapter 9 - Shadows of the Edge

**IX**

 **Shadows of the Edge**

* * *

His successful descent was a move purely reliant on dumb luck. Such was the nature of a scavenger, by far, but totally was it unsustainable and a move he found no comfort in.

The transition from the cool night air above to the claustrophobic, plastic-smelling, artificial atmosphere of the building's interior was swift, like a strike of lightning. Sanford probably fell for a total of six seconds. He didn't work out the math in his head about how many feet that equaled (if such a thing was even possible to do) –but he did realize that the landing itself _hurt._

 _Clung~!_ –His boots slammed into the metal of the duct chute like a pair of miniature cannonballs, and left sizable dents in the reflective, chrome steel upon their loud contacts. The man fell to a knee and grit his teeth as a staggering numbness wiggled like a giant maggot up his ankles and into his knees. The pain was intense, but at least not as bad as things had been before.

 _I got stabbed,_ Sanford almost comically remembered, offering a sultry chortle beneath his breath. _I got stabbed_ twice _out there. By a mob of Junkers. Twice. Or… was it three times?_

It didn't matter, and that was the bottom line.

Still, nothing had ever been gained by him through the acts of naivety and carelessness. The injuries had healed due to the Stim-packs he kept and his senses were quite keen.

Holding his gun, and allowing his body a long moment to recover, Sanford Tobs fell to a crouch, wincing as he focused on finding good headroom to not bash his skull on the roof of the tunnelway he faced. The moonlight shimmering in from the opened portal high above his head glistened off the surfaces of the chute. If he hadn't known better, he would've said he was standing in some dreamy nightmare passage made of liquid chrome.

 _I keep forgetting I don't have those anymore._

Out of habit, the man had glanced down at his lower area of vision expecting his suit to chime up a tally of local heartbeats and life signatures in the building. As was to be expected; there was nothing, and he was _still_ on his own as he knew he truly was.

 _Exciting? Maybe more terrifying. But maybe more exciting. What to choose to feel?_

The chute produced hollow, tiny _ch-chung_ –sounds with each step he took forwards, banishing the possibility of climbing his way back up to freedom behind himself. The scavenger ducked and hunch-walked down the tunnel ahead. Luckily, it was just tall enough for him to keep his knees to his chest and level his gun past his own ankles. It wasn't comfortable by far, but it sufficed.

 _Let's hope this shaft is empty of uglies._

Sanford had seen all kinds of shit living in chutes and pipes out in the city. Roaches, molerats, Radscorpions and Bloodbugs. They could all squeeze into tiny places like this, and things that normally weren't threatening out in the open would become fearsome opponents in such close quarters. He had to be careful, and he needed to use his gun as a last resort.

 _I'm outnumbered._

This deep in the chute, all he could hear was his own footfalls and a slight hiss of air wheezing down the tunnel. The building sounded like it was breathing. Moreso; it sounded like a gigantic corpse passing death-carbon out its own lungs. The chute _whispered_ to him in the dark, and it made his skin crawl.

 _Light._

Sanford grit his teeth as the moon failed to further illuminate his travels. Very quickly, the chute became pitch black just ahead, and he found himself cowed by the unknowing depths of that darkness.

 _Light, c'mon, man._

He dug into the rucksack over his back and produced a small hand flashlight. It bathed the chute in a blinding cone of whiteness with a tiny _click!_ –of the switch, and a buzz of ozone. The scavenger sighed in relief, keeping his gun in one hand and his newfound guide of light in the other.

 _I'm lucky the panels didn't collapse when I landed._

-Truthfully, this entire move was insane. The whole chute could've been unstable, and there was no telling where it would eventually dump him. He betted that it would lead to a boiler room or some old power cell, but it could've just as easily led to nowhere, or worse, a chute that dumped out into a public utility line.

 _Let's avoid that last one._

The tunnel twisted eastward, and Sanford followed it, hissing as his head bumped painfully on a groove sticking from the passage ceiling just overhead.

 _Son of a bitch._

Things were otherworldly in the glare of the little flashlight in his grip. The tunnel almost pulsated like a gigantic, living artery of white. He passed a few vents that were tisking idly whilst dancing shimmers of gray smoke licked out from their grooves.

 _Some of the utilities in the building are still working. Whoever these people are; they're pretty advanced technologically._

They were advanced apparently in all sorts of ways. An alliance? Or at least a measure of cooperation with Raiders, Gunners and other factions out here? It was something to marvel at. The Raiders were pushovers in terms of organization, especially since Sanford had spent so much time killing so many of their bright-minded people over the years. It was a wonder any of the tribes even existed anymore.

It was also a wonder how they hadn't all united under one banner to stop him. Sanford had to give that opportunity credence; _all_ the tribes out in Boston passionately hated him.

 _Fine memories anyhow, bunch of bastards,_ Sanford grinned at that. His amusement was a bit odd, and maddened, but he supposed it was a sign of someone who had spent too much of their lives killing people to be normal anyhow.

Back at the Red Rocket station, he had all kinds of weapons, trophies and baubles he'd collected throughout the years. There was this unique .32 he had found one day a long, long time ago, before he had even met Hancock. It was a silver six-shot custom build with a snub nose and vine-etched handle. Sanford had a story behind that gun that Nyx had questioned him about one night.

" _Monsieur,_ you have accumulated quite the treasure horde in this nest of yours…" The Deathclaw had sounded so… _cute_ , ironically for her identity, in that instance. An almost childish expression of intrigue was written upon her inhuman face as she pawed and fingered through all the things he had lying around in the station's bedding chambers and the garage. Everything had a story, but she only asked him about that silver .32.

"Got it off of a Raider chief." Sanford had smiled, holding the little firearm as if it was a priceless ingot of gold underneath both their noses. "One of the most bat-shit crazy moments of my life."

The chief and Sanford had gotten into a wrestling match. Again, it was just another situation given over to dumb luck.

Sanford and the chief had met each other out in the open after a long, ugly firefight that left the rest of the Raider tribe dead or dying. They'd pointed guns at each other, and had each pulled the trigger at the same time.

 _Click-_ each of their weapons had gone. Sanford remembered how there was an awkward second of him looking down at his SMG, with the Raider chief gawking at his rifle.

Two people who were destined to try and kill one another; standing in front of each other, out in the open, letting the adrenaline drain for just a _second_ to ponder how their killing implements were no longer capable of killing.

 _Something straight out of a nightmare._

As Sanford chose a leftwards direction in the chute, he frowned as the memory played like a miniature move reel in his mind's eye.

The Raider chief tackled him. He was a bigger guy, with lots of muscles, and tattoos of all kinds of vulgar, hideous shit written in piss-blood ink all over his dirty skin. Sanford could still remember the man's breath. It was disgusting, the smell of raw sewage, the smell of a person who had never brushed their teeth since they were children. They screamed, and punched, and bit and kicked and rolled.

That wrestling match had felt like an age's worth of horror and terror and reactions based off of milliseconds of panic and confusion. Sanford didn't quite remember every detail, but he remembered how the blood had felt warm on his neck and his face. He remembered how the chief's own hunting knife had made an excellent killing weapon.

 _He screamed like a little girl._

Sanford's smile started to die as he passed into another intersection of tunnels, this time, following a rampart that descended in a slight, chrome slope downwards.

 _He cried for his mother._

What a site to have seen. Such a big, angry looking, tough bruiser like that chief, a man who had spent his life beating others into submission, clawing his way through an underworld of murder, intrigue, lovelessness and hatred. Such a big, muscular _beast_ of a man.

When Sanford had started to open his flesh, that monstrous thug, that chiseled animal of a person had squealed like a little piglet. He did not scream litanies of unending depravity to Sanford, and he did not even curse, or roar or bark in indignant, last-ditch defeatism.

That big ganger screamed one thing.

"- _Mommy~!_ "

-And he screamed it again, and again and again, until Sanford had cut him so many times that the screaming stopped, and his ugly head was only connected to his shoulders by a thread.

 _Stab, stab, stab, stab…_

-Sanford felt his face twitch, and he licked his lips, almost like he wanted to taste the spray of all that blood again.

He stopped at the chute tunnel's corner, and lowered the cone of his flashlight, lathering in the resultant darkness.

 _I belong in this. Blackness. For what I am._

Was the cycle no more something to repeat and be lost eternally? All he did was kill and maim and destroy.

 _I'm trying to save the only good things that have ever happened in my life. Why does the world keep trying to take them from me?_

The tell-tale echo of something else in the tunnel reminded him of this simple answer on the dot.

The scavenger reacted with the persistence of speed as he always did. He dropped his flashlight and lashed out with his hand when the metallic reverberation of inhuman motion reached a culmination.

He didn't need the light to see- or _feel_ –what it was that was here with him.

The disgusting, oily and hairy surface of something almost as big as a housecat squished and left residue on his fingers. The man cried out in doubly revulsion and rage, and clenched his fist over the monster's tiny body despite this sickening texture.

The Bloatfly produced a curious noise as Sanford killed it. Things always tended to produce curiously sickening noises when they died. They were things that the killer sometimes didn't even realize were happening until _after_ they stopped.

For instance, Bloatflies weren't supposed to be able to produce any kind of vocalities or noises outside of the buzz of their ugly wings.

Yet somehow, those wings beat and whizzed in a way that just sounded like they were in reaction to his hands.

Sanford slammed the monstrous insect into the chute's wall, flinching as daggered stinger-barbs that were larger than his thumbs were ejected from the orifice capping its hairy abdomen. These projectiles smacked into the tunnel's opposite surface with several metallic _ping!-_ s, and stuck there like fired bullets.

The Bloatfly quivered as he gripped the underside of its thorax, and dug until yellow ichor bubbled like syrup up and around his fingers. The scavenger growled like a beast and ripped the insect's body open with his bare hands, letting the quivering, splattering carcass slide down to create a growing puddle of green ooze on the tunnel flooring.

Sanford slapped his hand on the wall and left a greenish, yellow print to hellishly mark the scene of death, and wiped the rest of the ichor off on his boot.

He stepped over his kill and delved further into the chute.

 _All I'm good for is killing things anyhow. I can't blame the world for trying to get good people like Nyx and Hancock away from someone like me again, and again._

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

His boots were dull on this landing. They met concrete and that reduced any racket they might have caused. The fall wasn't as steep, so the pause afterward was unnecessary.

This was a boon to him, because the chamber had a sentry.

Sanford was at least right about his first hunch when he had traversed that chute network; it had dumped him out in some boiler/machinery chamber with walls of concrete. Concrete muffled noise better than metal did. He dispatched the guard without cause for concern of retribution.

The Junker was once a Protectron, but now it was defiled and repurposed anew with bolted plates, longer limbs capped with serrated blades, and a single, crimson eye poking from the neck-joint where its dome had once been.

The Junker was scythed in half at the hip, and its pieces clattered to the floor in a cacophony of noise. Sanford altered his stance and strapped his energy cutlass back to his hip.

He muttered a quick ' _'scuse me'_ –to the sparking, soot-belching remains as he stepped over them.

Up a stairwell and out of the humming darkness in the pipe-strewn underchamber, Sanford disgorged into a taught hallway that went only north. He followed walls of cracked, beaten and ancient plaster until he found an office-cubicle space and surveyed his situation.

 _This entire place is crawling with sentries. Junkers, Mutant-things…_

Sanford didn't have to see the entire room to know how many they numbered. All of the cubicles and desks had been leveled by time and disrepair. The room resembled a miniature landfill; just a hill of jagged, rolling shit for three of these Junkers to wander around in. They sounded machine-like too.

 _Clunk, whir, clunk, clunk-_ went their joints and metal heels.

 _Easy pickings,_ the scavenger slipped around the smashed flank of an aluminum work desk. _Drop low and they won't know a thing._

Metal shrieked and a body of steel clattered to the ground. Sanford cut out one of the Junker's legs from under itself, and he plunged the cutlass' tip into its grooved chest when it fell. By the time its two friends wattled over, Sanford had already moved.

More Protectron models. Each of them was screwed up in its own unique way. Their hulls were repainted with the black-white colors and the skull emblem of this mysterious faction that owned them. Their arms had been replaced from the elbow-up with serrated machete blades and sharpened pylon shards. All rusty and beaten to hell; they looked like things straight out of the latter. _Hell._

 _Lemme' send you there._

 ** _Crash~!_** –the first Junker collapsed with a sparking trench wrought down its spinal plating. It vomited soot and bouts of machine-blood black as night as it fell.

Its friend was quicker on the mark, and Sanford was forced to weave westward as the last Junker robot twisted on its heel and slashed outwards with one of its machete blades. The weapon actually whistled as it passed closely, and horizontally to Sanford's nose-bridge.

 _Gotta' cull that shit._

The scavenger swept upwards and ran the thing through the abdomen with his blade, gritting his teeth, twisting the hilt, and kicking the spasming machine free with a swift jolt of his foot. _Clack~!_ –rang the corpse. It twitched and sparked and heaved before going still.

 _Sanford, three; Assholes, zero._

The scavenger didn't stay to regard his handiwork. The office led into something that was of higher cause for his concern.

 _Damn._

There was no fighting his way through this one. This time, he was outnumbered by a _lot._ Even he couldn't win a fight in these circumstances.

 _Oh, Helios, how I've missed you from better times…_

The appliance store might have once been bright with daylight and even at these hours, at least sporadically populated by late-shift clerks and eccentric night owl customers.

Now, it was a hollow, hangar-like tomb that was crisscrossed with rows of desolate refrigerators, ovens, washing machines and combination kitchen setups.

That, and it was patrolled by tens of Junker sentries.

The robots wandered like lumbering, metallic zombies. Protectron-Assaultron hybrids, Gutsy chassis welded onto leg sponsons, and RoboBrain treads affixed to the waists of other models. They were in singles and pairs, and they patrolled the almost endless rows of old suburban refinery with a diligent persistence.

Sanford did the same thing he did with all the old cars outside. It was all just a game of weaving and using the dark. Even robotic sensors had their limits, and these were _Junkers,_ they had plenty of scanning software and hardware that was already on the fritz.

" ** _Have. A. Nice. Day._** " –A wandering Protectron groaned without tone or humanity, its stubby feet clacking with each fall as it passed between a pair of door-gaping fridge units.

 _Eat me, you freak._

Sanford waited for the machine to waddle past and slipped from where he had been hiding in the dark gap between the units.

" ** _Please. Remember. To wash. Your. Hands._** " –The robot droned to his south.

 _At least there's something we can agree on, you me._

The appliance store's front was shattered. It once been made of glass and was now open on all squares. Sanford slipped between a few islands of ruined cashier counters and avoided the studious, almost drunken observations of a hovering Gutsy Junker as it passed between two of the registers.

 _This was a Home-Co store._

Home-Co! The modern suppliers to meet _your_ needs for the standardized family lifestyle of the American household. Sanford cast the dead store a grim smile as he hopped over the front's shattered glass mounds and through one of the window sills.

Outside was one of the main aisles of Helios' public shopping center. The _Home-Co!_ logo emblazoned over the storefront's roof behind him was a dark, unlit reminder of the world he had once known.

 _I remember when dad took us to buy a fridge from there one day. He thought the prices were so outrageous, that he left in a fit, and bought our new fridge from some independent place outside where Goodnieghbor is. It worked for a year and crapped out._

Sanford hid among an old seating area, looking around the grand-styled center, his eyes fell on torn, rotting banners that had once draped over the aisles and halls. Mounds of rubble buried storefronts once littered with bright colors and spunky brandnames. Ruined Nuka-Cola machines stuck from the debris like mourning gulls trapped in a dried landslide. Moonlight shimmered from a massive pair of shattered skylight panels directly overhead, and the silvery illumination dappled off of the remnants of his old world with seeming sorrow.

 _I remember this life._

Sanford switched to his rifle and navigated through wire-iron seats and wire-iron tables, he knelt over a rotting, fallen table-umbrella bloom that was spread on the floor like a red-white striped blanket.

 _I wonder how many others might be alive who do too._

He knew the answer to that. His father was alive. His mother was alive. Fuck them both.

 _All alone._

There were Junker patrols out here too. He could see them far off down other aisles in the shopping passages. They were in pairs and trios, working loops through the ruined storefronts, lobbies and dining areas. Sanford had forgotten how huge Helios was on the inside.

 _I hear something._

The scavenger lowered his head and presented his ear. For just a second, he believed he was hearing the whisper of those chute tunnels again.

But it wasn't a whisper of wind. This time, it was a whisper of _voices._

Shouting, cheering, some things that were very distant.

 _Follow the noise._

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

The cheering was always something of a double-edged sword for him. On one hand, it made it easy to fantasize, and forget the reasons why he led the life he led. On the other hand, it reminded him of the repugnancy of these people, and of how much he hated them.

Calvin Studebak didn't have as much humanity left in his skin as he did his own guts. What had gradually started to happen over the years was a transformation that left him in some indescribable parody between the realm of flesh and that of steel. His left arm was metal, his left eye was metal and so too was the leftwards wrap of his cranium. All of the bionics wired across his breast and legs didn't exactly subtract from the constant feeling of Winter due to the soulless metal that was gradually replacing his birth-skin.

So it was indeed strange, smoking a cigarette, feeling the nothingness on his lips and on the exterior of his robotic form, yet taking in the smog and the rejuvenation of addiction within his very organic lungs and throat.

He coughed, and some of the smoke rolled out and past his teeth to dissipate in his face. Calvin bit the cigarette's butt and ducked his one good hand into the pocket of his coat, digging until he found the object he sought.

 _Eat it up, you bastards, it's what you've wanted._

"I can't believe you got _both_ of them."

 _Why must they always try to speak with me during the events?_

Calvin pinched his smoke out of his lips and smiled, hiding his newly retrieved bauble behind his own hip in his other hand. He stepped towards the rim of the Praetorian Box again, and he followed the Gunner envoy's gaze down into the arena below.

"They always say that the early birds gets the worm." He said, gesturing with his cigarette. "The Scavenger's never been a _me_ problem, and so it's easy to catch the jump on someone who's ignorant of you."

"That's…" The Gunner was named Leeroy. He was a scarred fellow, like pretty much everyone in his group was. Dark skin, missing an eye and clad in an Army-standard flak suit. He looked every bit like an Old Earth soldier of the United States of America, minus the leather, and the raggedy appearance. If nothing else, Calvin admired the Gunners for their discipline, but not so much their purpose.

 _No better than Raiders._

"-I've idolized General Sherridan in my matches of late." Calvin said, his bionic eye whirring as it focused on the envoy's face. "I never needed the sponsorship that the Skulltakers offer to know a good ally when I see one. I assume this will… _help things along_ with our agreement?" He gestured again to the two unwilling participants below.

"Oh yeah." Leeroy grinned, watching the events below with a fixed and keen eye. The patch over his right eye was a bit of a mark of kinship between them. A man who had lost an eye could have good words of reason and mutual understanding with another man who had lost an eye too. "The Scavenger's nothing without these. That Deathclaw? That thing's getting what's coming to it. Say, you're a know-it-all; how'd some Scav' get his hands on a loyal beast like that?"

"Truthfully," Calvin shook his head. "I haven't the foggiest myself. Not at all. Not at all."

"He probably mind-wiped it."

Leeroy and Calvin looked over at the other Gunner envoy standing next to them. A bald-headed woman of younger age by the name of Kell. She had both her eyes still, but there were a series of scars running up and down her grimy face that spoke leagues of troubled times all of their own. Their similar origins led to a distinct likeness in body type as well as attitude. Calvin had observed that all Gunners possessed the personalities of corpses, but rarely did he run into women that held such masculine blandnesses and men who lacked any muscular definition whatsoever.

Were the Gunners cloning people, or were their recruitment processes so vigilant and standardized that people came out like this each and every time?

"What is this woman going on with…" Leeroy was laughing at Kell's suggestion. It lightened Calvin's mood, and so he sucked on his smoke and grinned as he watched the two mercenaries bicker. "The Scavenger's not smart enough to do _that._ That's a southern thing. Ya' know, the stories? You think our guy could do that?"

"How else could he have wiped out half of a division in just a few months?"Kell countered, staring at him with these expressionless eyes. They lacked commandeering and dominance. Calvin didn't like it. Leeroy had it too. He didn't like either of them. "This Tobs guy is the shit. He killed General Hart."

"Hart." Leeroy tisked. "He will be missed. Guy was an asshole in the barracks block, but he got the job done. You know that, man? The Scavenger, the guy you stole these things from? He assaulted Hart's camp, killed everyone, and disemboweled the General, all in a night."

"All in a night." Kell was looking down at the arena again. "I had friends in Hart's unit."

"We all did." Leeroy sighed. Calvin experienced nothing from the exchange. To him, Gunners had their uses being either dead or alive. Alive; and they could prove to be valuable allies for his cause. Dead; and they weren't bothering a soul anymore.

Calvin showed none of this anyhow, which was a trademark of his cold, roboticized exterior. It had its ups and downs.

" _Junker._ "

Calvin turned from the rim of the Box and smiled.

"The man of the hour." He said.

A hand thick with strength gripped his shoulder and clenched. It was a good thing Calvin, the Junker, could hide his expressions and emotions well, because Brokeman Jawlock's breath stunk like a heap of dead bodies.

"I see you've put my caps to good use, eh?" Jawlock's grin was hidden underneath all the facial hair, and even though Calvin was a standard height for a middle aged man as he was, he still had to look up at the monstrous, younger warlord for clarity.

"As always, my friend. As always. Your prisoner stockhold this week was quite lovely. I look forward to their performance." Calvin waited for the Skulltaker warlord's fingers to slip off his shoulderblade before he took another drag of his cigarette. "-As I would think, and hope, your crew does as well."

"Aw _yeah,_ " Brokeman laughed, and Calvin could see the handle for his massive hammer jostling around back there as the mount-straps struggled to keep it against the Raider chief's spine. "-I've got a whole house of rabble-rousers waiting for that blood to spill. I got ya' a good selection this time; one of those wars, ya' know? _Lots_ of prisoners not willing to wear my emblem. They'll make you fine entertainment. They will."

"I've no doubt of it!" The Junker laughed. " _Ah!_ Mr. Brokeman Jawlock," He turned to the two Gunner envoys standing beside him, gesturing them to the towering man. "Lord of the Skulltakers hailing from the North! The Eviscerator, and the Hammer of Nuka, and… and…"

Calvin actually faltered. The Warlord of the Skulltakers had an extensive list of titles that was as long or longer than the very height of his ego, and he enjoyed having them listed in prim, proper introductions.

"-You got it, and;" Brokeman grinned like an appeased child. "-The Beast of 495, eh?"

" _Yes,_ of course, and-"

"-Go on, _Patron._ "

Calvin fucking hated the man.

"-The Beast of 495, and the Doom of the Dirt Rod Tribe." Calvin finished with a hitch of disgust. "Gunner envoys Leeroy and Kell; it appears you both share a common enemy."

"Nah, Boston's outside my watch." Brokeman wiped at his mustache before either of the Gunners could speak. Both of them were looking up at him as if he wasn't even a human, but a giant of some sort. "This Scavenger dude you people ramble about sounds like a trip though. Maybe I should bring him up to Nuka-World and use him for some things. I've got plenty of people I need stamped."

"Chieftain of the Skulltakers?" Leeroy laughed. "I'm honored, sir."

"Hey, an admirer. I dig." Brokeman gripped Leeroy's shoulder and winked at Kell. "Who're you then, doe?"

Kell looked like she wanted to shoot him. Quickly, Calvin stepped forwards and pointed to the arena.

"So the deal is set then, and to the mark I must remind you all," He explained. "I get the caps, the Gunners have their arch rival weakened, and _you,_ " He pointed to Brokeman. "-the moment this Scavenger's _Deathclaw_ outlives its marketing value; it's yours. Sedated, mind-wiped, augmented, however you want it."

"- _Yeah._ " Brokeman stroked his beard, intrigued. "Yeah, all you lot are telling stories about that thing. Y-You say it can _talk?_ How's that?"

"I heard it myself." Calvin winked. "I even believe, it refers to itself as a _she._ "

" _Hey,_ havin' some razor-dragon on the rag's not a bad weapon." Brokeman watched the arena below. "Look at that thing. Fuckin' ugliest motherfucker I ain't _evva'_ fuckin' seen. Don't kill it, man, I can use a machine like that. Nuka-World's _politics_ demand some sharp edged precision, you know?"

" _Precisely_. Precisely, really!" Calvin laughed, and then he pointed to a spot behind the warlord. "-And _you,_ Ms. Locust-"

"Sarah is appropriate." Spoke a woman clad in black infantry armor. She had been so silent throughout this exchange that even the Gunner envoys and Brokeman had forgotten she was there. The warlord leered at her with this ugly smile. He did that with every woman he encountered, but he did it with persistence against Sarah Locust of the Scythe Company. "You get the computers, we get that machine." The Company commander nodded to the Mr. Gutsy below in the arena. "I've heard tales of that robot. It and this _Scavenger_ have a long history?"

"The longest." Leeroy sneered. "I saw that freaking robot clip one of my guys in two with its little saw there. I heard it laughing while it did it. The Scav's got a thing with that Gutsy."

"It calls itself _Han-cock._ " Calvin blew a puff of smoke out from his lips, and flicked the spent butt off the ledge of the Box. "In fact, I must relent, I couldn't get the Mr. Gutsy to shut up when I had it in its cell. I had some of my Super Mongers restrain it, and only then could I get it to see reason. We actually have a participant down there today who entered the ring _willingly._ "

"No shit?" Brokeman grinned like a doofus. " _Hell,_ can we switch prizes?" He went to nudge Sarah Locust, but one of her nearby guards put his hand on the sidearm at his hip, and the Warlord stopped to grin at her. " _Lady,_ I don't want you to pull out that gun. People pull guns on me and go _bye-bye._ "

"The Mr. Gutsy is ours. You receive the creature." Sarah smiled humorlessly. "It's a fair split of the spoils. Besides; I'm not transporting a live Deathclaw back to D.C."

Brokeman muttered something under his breath along the lines of that being ' _too bad' –_ along with a more vulgar insult for the armed Scythe guard.

"All's well for the best. Now, _you,_ " The Junker turned to the other side of the Praetorian Box, where the only person who wasn't interested in observing the match below stood within the shadows of the conversation, hidden in a long trench coat, and a silvery fedora hat. "-your request is a little more complicated but _doable._ Podcaster! If you would show our guest his own take of the spoils?"

" ** _I've got a one-time offer for you, straight from the market-mind of the Patron._** "

"Fuckin' thing gets on my nerves…" Brokeman grumbled.

The RoboBrain rattled on its tread system from the Box's ledge, its green eye focusing on the worldless stranger who stood nearby.

" ** _You sir, are a lucky, lucky man._** "

In acceptance of this, the stranger stepped forwards and offered a curt tip of his hat to the Junker. All in attendance- aside from the Junker –risked him a glance, and did not stare longer than that, for they all sensed a sort of wrongness about him.

"I appreciate that, Mr. Junker." The stranger said. "It'll all make sense when I get what I need."

"As with all clientele." Calvin waved Podcaster onwards. "Podcaster? The spoils."

" ** _Righty-o, sir, righty-o._** " The RoboBrain wheeled its way closer. " ** _Come with me, honored guest of the Box! We've got your deal._** "

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-


	10. Chapter 10 - Fire-Sale!

**X**

 **Fire-Sale!**

* * *

At first, Sanford thought it was a barricade of some kind. There was nothing but rising steel, festooned with supportive girders and streaked with welded lines of sealing. Scaffolding made of scavenged girders, bolted stockades and repurposed bumpers, fenders and doors of automobiles created a skeleton with which the wall could sprawl against without risk of collapse.

It spanned from the shopping center's floor all the way to the shattered skylights in the ceiling above. It had to have been a barricade, Sanford had reasoned, to prevent people from reaching the center of Helios.

A closer inspection revealed a much different purpose.

 _Oh my god._

Sanford's gasp was stifled and entirely hidden by the excited shriek of a _crowd._ Hundreds of people. There were more human beings here, in one place, than Sanford had seen in years. Tens and tens of tattooed, drunken, screaming, hoarse-throated punks. Every single one of them. Sanford wasn't even high enough to see all the details from where he was, and he could still make out tribal markings and brand tattoos that showed off a legion of Raider groups. Many of them, he knew.

 _Black Snakes, Tunnelheds, Dark Men, Iron Warriors, Templars, Rimmers…_

The list went on. From his hiding space behind a collection of support beams, Sanford was able to peak under the very flooring of what was revealed to be a massive set of repurposed bleachers, and his eyes drank in all sorts of names, titles and horrors from the past.

 _Half of these guys, I don't have a clue otherwise._

Though there were plenty of floorboards and running lines of rusty pipes and boot soles in the way, Sanford could edge his head around and pick out exposed arms and gnarly faces amongst the commotion. There was a riot of insignia he had never seen before. A black dagger, a blood drop with vines around it, and a cracked skull with a bullet hole in the forehead. The latter was the most common. It seemed most of the crowd in the stands above was from the same organization.

What startled Sanford was just how many of them there were in total. Did this mean that there was a Raider tribe out there that had _hundreds_ of members? Normally, they only numbered twenty, thirty, sometimes forty or over.

This wasn't just a gang he was dealing with.

 _It's an army._

The scavenger rolled his jaw, flinching when some boot soles slammed and jerked into the decking over his head. Dust cascaded from the ruckus and sprinkled into his hair and on his shoulders. He coughed and swept it away hurriedly.

 _I wonder how many I could kill if I sprayed the boards,_ Sanford grinned at the thought, looking down at his rifle. _No. No, stay focused._

A great deal of noise was not coming from the crowd, but whatever they were cheering at. Sanford had to admit, that the ominous racket of the whoops and howls from the onlookers was a ghostly thing to behold. The manic rush bounced around Helios oddly. What had once been a family-oriented shopping mall had become a staple-point of violence and bloodshed.

He wondered what had them so riled up.

 _Gotta' get on top._

The undersides of the arena structure were nothing but a maze of crisscrossing girders, wall sections, stockade rises and crosses of beams. Sanford felt like he was a child navigating a jungle-gym that was the size of a city. He was forced to bend, duck and twist through obstacles, marveling at his own previous unseen adeptness with flexibility and constitution.

 _Nyx must be rubbing off on me._

He came across an outcrop in the ground, where the mall's flooring had been stripped, and colossal support beams had been driven into a gorge gouged in a patch of exposed earth. Kneeling behind a pile of ancient, rusting pipe lengths, Sanford swept the area with his gun, flinching in surprise when some people sitting above his head jeered loudly at some development outside.

 _This is an arena._

Sanford was able to discern a vaguely disk-like orientation to the superstructure here. Whatever was happening in the arena's iris was unseen to him, as the pit was completely sealed with reinforced stockades and metal plates. There was a long rectangle of bolted steel that connected to the inner ring iris and extended westward until it vanished into a ruined shopping center's remains. He had no doubt that it was a tunnelway of some kind.

 _First this, then that._

A healthy dose of curiosity was shielding his prior dread. Now it seemed that the kidnapping of his companions wasn't so straightforward. There were no torture chambers, no laboratories. He didn't doubt that there were holding pens, but so far, it was the understructure of scrap-arena, cheering crowds, and-

"- _Is that the best you fuckers got on- the Han'~?!_ "

 _Oh no._

Sanford felt like someone had drop-kicked his heart into his own throat. He whirled around and stared at the armored barrier barring his vision as to what was happening in the arena's center. Now that he had heard the faint outcry over the scream of the crowds, he knew that he didn't _need_ to see what was happening to understand it.

 _Oh god._

Sanford ground his teeth and worked around the pipe pile. He jumped into the gorge, navigating through the copious shade until he met its epicenter.

 _At least whoever constructed this was smart about the layout._

It was inevitable that service ways would be needed to maintain something this big. The ladder extending from the gorge's concrete, diode center upwards was proof of that.

Slinging his rifle, Sanford started to tug himself up the rungs. The ladder creaked with each of his movements, but it held steadfast against his weight.

Soon he was climbing into a rounded porthole built into the structuring above his head. The square-shaped funnel was a thing of layered scrap and repurposed woodboard. It resembled a multi-colored cyclone when he looked up and down in either direction.

 _Let's hope whatever's above isn't guarded._

For some reason, the scavenger felt confidence in his own safety in that moment.

As it turned out, when he reached the top rung, and his quivering, dirty hand grabbed the final handle of the ladder's spine, it all turned out to be a sick joke of fate.

 _Ha,_ Sanford grinned as he pulled himself out of the chute and onto a creaking, wooden floor. _Fancy that, you sons of bitches._

"Who the fuck are _you?_ "

The man was shirtless, and had a little red goatee on the tip of his chin. Tattoos of green-colored serpents meshed with those of swastikas and cartoon-oriented ghosts. He had had a boot placed on a chair right beside the chute. As Sanford wobbled to a full stand in front of him, the scavenger could perceive the fresh trails of nicotine-laced smoke that were still rising from the newly lit cigarette between the thug's lips.

Something clanked on the floor. Sanford coughed into his fist and glanced leftwards. The second man who had lit the first's cigarette had dropped his lighter, his mouth agape in confusion.

"Ladies," Sanford grunted. "how the hell are ya'?"

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

Wood thudded, and the body left a slick of blood as it slid down to the floor.

Sanford grunted, lowered the pistol in his hand, and rolled his opposite shoulder, allowing the corpse that was draped over it to roll onto the ground with a disingenuous _thud!_

 _That could've been worse._

Slipping his cutlass from the dead Raider's stomach, the scavenger waited for the energy coalescing over the blade to burn away the last of the blood, before he shut the weapon down and slung it back to his hip.

"I forgot what using these things was like." He mumbled, checking the clip on the stolen sidearm to see that it was empty. "Thanks for that, you dumb fucks." He tossed weapon over his shoulder and proceeded to look for his rifle, which had been snagged away in the chaos.

The fight had been a literal twist. It had been quick, but a twist. Literally. Nobody had died in the same places they had started out in. In fact, an outside observer probably wouldn't have been able to tell which way the attackers had come from or where the defenders had been.

Needless to say, the pillbox was scattered with about eight or nine corpses, if you counted the poor slob that Sanford had cut in half at the waist. If it hadn't been for the carbon-based laser energies of his sword, he would've never have been able to separate the guy from his own legs like that.

 _Probably would've been better off._

He grimaced as he stepped through the aforementioned Raider's entrails that were slithered across the floor like a small cadre of pink serpents.

 _At least the mess wouldn't have been as bad._

The crowd screaming their heads off outside had masked everything, even the handful of gunshots. Any passerby who had heard the ruckus had probably assumed it was only some of their buddies getting drunk and putting holes in the ceiling. Sanford was fine with that level of ignorance himself.

At least, for the time being.

 _Now,_ the scavenger rolled a corpse over and snatched up his rifle that had been caught under the Raider woman's stomach. He glanced at her open, lifeless eyes. _I'll take that, but thanks for holding it. Asshole._

The door leading out of the service pillbox was cracked ajar, and it let in a gray beam of light from the loud exterior that dueled with a hauntingly amber tone inside the room. Some lanterns were scattered on top of rusting aluminum shelving units and a now smashed wood table in the room's center. Apparently, this was being used as a restroom of sorts for Helios' new inhabitants. There were playing cards scattered like fallen hail pebbles all across the bloodstained floor. A Raider that was missing a chunk of his temple was lying ass-up in the table's snapped remnants.

Sanford had shot him with his own gun. 10millimeters were civilian gigs, but hell, in close quarters they packed a punch.

 _Time for some answers,_ the scavenger used the nose of his gun to inch the pillbox door open. What he saw shocked him. _Oh no._

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

At first, she thought that the ceiling was coming down.

Truthfully, that was what the motions represented. It looked like debris had snapped off the arena's roof and was about to crush her under its immense weight, like she was nothing more than a bug.

 _Non. That is not ruination,_ Nyx's eyes went wide, and she was already moving before her own mind could process her reaction. _Merde!_

Cylindrical objects that were the size of people descended from the spotlight-laden heavens above. They were entangled in hundreds of feet of mesh-wire, that sang and reverberated and bounced as the cylinders unwound from their lengths via gravity's pull.

The objects spun and rotated crazily, until they reached the fullest lengths of the lines holding them, and they snapped to rigid, dangling attention just before hitting the arena's sandy ground.

 _Quoi au nom de dieu are those things?_

They were engine blocks. Soot-belching, growling engine blocks. Each of them hung from wires that were hundreds of feet long, that shimmered in the glare of the spotlights as they kept the machines suspended. There were tens of them. As Nyx rose to her clawed feet and examined them, she saw what exactly they were meant to do.

 _You have to be kidding._

 ** _Snap~!_** –Nyx leapt back when an engine block fell to and dangled in the space just ahead of herself. The Deathclaw's talons unsheathed and she poised herself to move. The growling, bucking piece of machinery seemingly challenged her by licking the air with black smog and licks of fire from the exhaust vents layering down its spine. For a moment, she lowered her guard and peered at the line suspending the engine block, following it up and up until the spotlights above blinded her to its source.

 _Connerai!_ The reptile thought. _Am I not the genetically modified creature speaking a foreign tongue? Why is it that this wasteland has humans that are even_ crazier?

 ** _Clunk~!_** –went the engine block. Nyx looked down at the block's underside, the side pointing down at the ground.

It was tipped with a propeller.

" ** _Ladies and gentlemen, you all know how the Patron can devise a good evening's entertainment,_** " –Came the announcer's booming voice across the arena's loudspeakers. " ** _behold; the Obstacle Course! Where our heroes will first face off against the Spinning Death!_** "

" _Obstacles?_ " Hancock screamed nearby, sweeping his gaze about the hanging forest of engine blocks. "Wait a minute! I've been _scammed!_ I came here hoping for a mob of slack-jawed mother-fuckers with guns and blades and shit! _What is this?_ "

" _Usiner._ " Nyx growled, stepping back from the nearest block. "We must be _rapide._ These engines are capped with industrial strength fan blades. They will cut even _you._ "

" _Ha!_ That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of!" Hancock swatted at her with his buzzsaw. "What do they think we'll do? _Blunder into these unmoving, still-as-trees propeller blades?_ That's classic Communist assumptions at work! Damned reds, always takin' us _westerners_ for clods and diaper-lickers!"

"Would it be wrong to ask that you concentrate _pour une fois?_ " She snapped.

" _Did you just call me obsolete in Francian~?_ "

" _Franc-ian? Mere de dieu!_ I speak _Francais,_ French! What even is this word you speak of that is _Francian~?_ " The Deathclaw shrieked. "You're too blinded by your own stupidity! _Do you not understand that we must work together to survive this?_ "

"Ya' know, your tail would make an excellent slave-whip if I ripped it off, treated it with some leather-techniques, and tied it to a rope!" Hancock proclaiming, doting on her bladed fifth appendage.

" _I'm going to die in here~!"_ Nyx screamed.

" ** _Turn on the blades!_** " –Podcaster called.

The air was suddenly filled with a razor-sharp screech. Nyx leapt back when all of the engine blocks at once began to wiggle and shake. The fan-blades installed on their undersides were whirring into blinding blurs. Soon, the entire arena was drowned with their screams. There were almost thirty of them gridding the open pit of the arena's center. Very little space was left between clusters of these dangling death-traps.

"We're doomed." Nyx mumbled under breath. The reptile kept backing away, scanning her surroundings, until something cold touched one of her spines.

She yipped and spun around to see that she and Hancock had backed into each other. It was a strange moment of parody, being caught in the center of that blade-whirling hellhole in such a manner. Back to back. Normally, either of them were doing that with _Sanford,_ and not at the same time.

"Lizard-Lick?" The robot asked.

" _Oui, usiner?_ "

"Lemme' just say that without a doubt-" Hancock poked her with the inactive flat of his buzzsaw. Steel sang loudly when she backhanded him on instinct. The robot spiraled, righted himself, and hollered- "- _Lincoln's Beard-! You sociopathic bitch~! I was gonna' say it was an_ honor _to kick ass with you!_ "

" _Well,_ let me remind you that this is all-" Nyx caught herself and blinked. "-…wait, _really?_ "

"Not anymore." A nozzle squeaked, and Nyx hissed in disgust when a stream of black liquid pattered onto the ground beside her foot. "- _Taste the Han's crude piss, you slap-happy radiation-frog!_ "

" ** _Now, of course, the Obstacle Course wouldn't be complete without_** **something** ** _to goad our heroes into the blades! Of course. Of Course. Release the bugs!_** "

"What did he say?" Nyx asked.

"Somethin' about _ugs_ I think." Hancock sealed his coolant nozzle. "Ugly-ass Communist footwear! _Haven't you bastards ever heard of crocs~?_ "

 ** _Slam~!_** –went one of the arena's tunnelway gates. Both Nyx and Hancock gazed over several of the hanging engine blocks to the northern face of the arena, to the gate that was at the foot of the Praetorian Box's foundation.

Little lithe shapes that were close to the ground skittered in a small, colorless mob from the dark interior of the passage beyond. They seemingly detached from the very shadows of the unseen depths within, scrambling on thin, straw-like legs.

Nyx tested the air with her tongue, and released a gasp.

" _Usiner!_ " She warned, flicking her talons free of their sheaths on both hands.

"I see 'em!" Hancock chuckled.

"Aim _faible!_ "

"Something about your mother?"

" _Aim low~!_ "

The creatures were younglings of their kind. They were the size of dogs, and yet the venom they carried in hushed, lowered bunches behind themselves was enough to kill even a Deathclaw in significant dosages.

Where fully grown adults outsized men and were evenly at risk of running into the whirring fanblades of the hanging obstacle forest, these youths were too low to the ground to recognize such a threat.

Hancock's Plasma Gun barked and the Mr. Gutsy was rife with laughter.

" _Show me what you got, you scampering little bastards~!_ "

Nyx stepped back right as a barbed, chitinous blade came down towards one of her feet. It stabbed into the sand instead, its host yanking it clear to reorient in a vaguely 'U' shaped presence over its own back.

The Radscorpion's mouth-pieces clattered together, and it lumbered closer to attempt and sting her again.

The Deathclaw snarled under her breath, reached down, and wrapped her fingers around the arachnid's tail. The scorpion shrieked as she lifted it up into the air.

Nyx used her other claw to grip its face, before she tugged in separate directions and ripped the scorpion in two, spattering her knees and the ground with bouts of gushing, white offal.

" _I've got enough for all of ya'! Bring it on! The Han's opening up a can of ass-whoop, and you're all on the express order-list!_ " Hancock weaved left and right, he fired twice and incinerated a scorpion's face. He swung backwards, dodged the upwards swipe of a barbed tail, and stained his metal chassis with death-cream as he scythed the scorpion's back-plating open with his buzzsaw, poaching it like a cooked egg. " _Someone give this G.I. a fight! You people don't have any balls~!_ "

"They are not the only ones, _usiner._ " Nyx spat, transforming a scorpion's scream into moist ripping. She parted her hands and the ragged remains flung themselves east and west.

"I heard that, you talking python!" Hancock barked. "I take back everything I almost said! This isn't an _honor,_ this is _bullshit,_ man! Trapped here in this fine gladiatorial establishment, with my commanding officer's _fuck-toy_ as my only backup!"

" _What did you call me~?_ " Nyx compressed her heel until the Radscorpion's upper half compressed into the earth like it was a pancake. Guts and blood squirted between her toes and speckled the ground. " _You fils de pute~!_ "

" _You heard me!_ " Hancock screamed, even as two scorpions launched themselves off the ground, and latched onto his chassis, crawling around, chattering, blunting the barbs of their tails as they attempted to inject venom into a bloodless foe. " _You're a malformed, condescending, ass-crack-lickin' bitttcccchhhhhh~!_ " –The robot hollered, rolling onto the ground, his buzzsaw flailing as more and more Radscorpions piled onto him.

Nyx would've piled onto him too at that moment. In fact, she would've been overjoyed to not only _let_ the scorpions eat Hancock, but she would also've _helped_ them by ripping him into smaller, more chewable pieces.

Instead, the scorpions were content to attack her too. The Deathclaw swiped her claws low, casting corpses back with each strike, even as they swamped her and forced her backwards.

 _Now I perceive the danger of these fans,_ she hummed to herself, casting a worried look over her own shoulder. The fan-propellers blurred the air and the engine blocks wiggled on the ends of the cables suspending them. _Maybe this will be quick and I'll walk into one of them. It is better than scorpion venom._

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

" _Is it just me, or is that Deathclaw's mouth moving~?_ "

" _What? I can't hear you~._ "

" _I said; is it just me, or-_ "

" _-Speak up!_ "

" _It is just me, or-_ "

-Sanford slit the first Raider's throat open before he could finish asking his loud, and annoying question. The cutlass danced once, and torrents of syrupy crimson ran like a tiny waterfall down his vest.

The man choked and gagged as he collapsed and alerted his friend that he had been yelling at. The second Raider gasped, went for a sidearm on his belt, and died when Sanford came from the flank, cupped his head in his arm crease, and wrenched backward.

 _Crkk~!_ –went the man's neck. The scavenger bundled the corpse in his arms and hid it with the other behind a railing rise before any of the crowd could see.

 _Just hold on, guys._

Sanford peaked over the railing and over the heads layering the bleachers. He gasped as he saw Nyx's tiny form maneuvering through the network of blade-rigged engine blocks dangling all over the arena's pit. The Radscorpions skittering across the ground were close on her heels. He saw his Deathclaw occasionally whirl around and hack a scorpion into two or three slices when they leapt at her. She weaved and bobbed and desperately avoided the fanblades she passed. Only she could've managed that with such speed. Hancock couldn't do it, he was too busy being swarmed on the ground nearby.

 _He'll be fine._

Sanford ducked back down and rolled his eyes. Even over the crowd's roar he could hear his robot cursing and cackling. It was faint but it was there.

 _Now, how does one cause such a ruckus, that it shuts down an entire coliseum?_

He remembered old gladiator movies he had watched when he was kid, before the bombs. Tales of heroes infiltrating and finding loopholes in the Roman slave pits to meet their own goals of freedom. Sanford couldn't have ever dreamed he'd be doing the same for his own friends.

 _Staying on target's the easy part,_ the scavenger vaulted a window sill, and ducked behind the ruins of a storefront. He let a stalking pair of Super Mongers waddle heavily past before proceeding. _Finding a way to stab through all this is the hard bit._

The raised portions of the arena, the boxes and serviceways that led to the bleacher rows had all once been the second and third story shopping lanes in Helios' main square. They were shielded by the shade of the arena's colossal scrap-structuring, made unimportant by the howl of the crowd, but were patrolled by Super Mongers and more Junker robots. Sanford avoided them by sticking to the shadows.

"… ** _a worthy prize, if I do say so myself, sir. The Patron went to great lengths to… get it._** "

Sanford slipped behind a pile of drum barrels, kneeling, he shouldered against his cover and listened over all the noise. To his west, the arena was still bustling with noise and lights.

"I have no doubts of the Junker's intuition." –Spoke a second voice, one that was undoubtedly human, at least, and not mechanical like the first. "Where did he find it?"

" ** _Of course, the Patron has forbidden me to reveal such knowledge! But really, presto! It's gone. He removed it from my coding._** "

"Ah, that is not very surprising."

Sanford watched over a barrel's rim as the man in the trenchcoat and fedora was escorted by the most peculiar looking RoboBrain model robot that he had ever seen. Large speaker-discs replaced the RoboBrain's arms and were festooned like ribbed décor from around his back plating. The dirty treads carrying the contraption rattled on the cracked tiles of the mall's flooring.

 _That's the arena announcer,_ Sanford glanced back at the rear of the cheering crowd. Hundreds of people, now without an announcer. This had to be of importance. _Maybe they'll lead me to this Junker character I'm hearing so much shit about._

-A terrible crash echoed from the arena to his left. The crowd went into an uproar. Sanford forced himself to tear away from it and follow the two trekkers before him.

 _Give them hell, guys._

The cheering became more and more quiet as Sanford tailed the trenchcoat man and his RoboBrain escort. They vanished into a traveler's alley between two ruined storefronts, and from there on in things began to replace themselves with an eerie atmosphere.

"Did you hear that?" The stranger glanced over his shoulder.

" ** _The tunnels here hiss up a storm, sir. Keep close! Keep close, one cannot miss this one of a time offer!_** " PodCaster chuckled, rumbling forwards and into an arched maintenance bulkhead.

"The Junker didn't see fit to remove your advertising programming too." The stranger observed, tearing his cold gaze from whence they had come.

" ** _No. How can we_** **sell** ** _our services without a_** **salesman?** "

"You've been doing just fine, it seems."

Sanford waited until the trenchcoat's tail flittered into the doorway, he unfolded from behind a mound of rubble with a sigh of relief.

 _It's quiet back here. Except for those pipes._

The scavenger hunched and hurried down a passageway whose walls were encrusted with bolted, hiss-kicking industrial pipes. An occasional floodlight in the ceiling dimly lit the hallway in sporadic placements. They highlighted the edges of the archway ahead as Sanford shuffled through.

 _Where are you two going, I wonder?_

The arena's racket was completely gone here, replaced by a dull, industrial thrum of active generators. Sanford kept low and relied on a ghoulish, black depiction of his target's shadows that smeared themselves constantly due to the illumination from the tunnel's floodlights. Each time PodCaster and the stranger passed from one light, and their shadows faded, they passed into the next and their shadows would strengthen.

 _Smells like plastic down here, lots of plastic and… and ozone._

Sanford crinkled his nose.

"So this is where the magic happens?"

" ** _You could say that._** "

There was another bulkhead, opened, fat and reinforced. Sanford slipped into cover by the frame's flank, and he peered past and into a large chamber beyond.

The stranger and PodCaster trailed down the center of a fully fledged laboratory. It was built like an aisle, with two subchambers divided between the east and west. Tables laden with spare parts, wire-setups and computer consoles littered the center of the room. A strange, disk-shaped orifice bored into the flooring was surrounding by plexiglass shields, and scrap-born, robotic claws that were tipped with clenching pincers, welding heads, and shock-pads.

This device took up the entire northern section of the chamber. Judging by the work-carts filled to the brim with all manner of robotic components, Sanford could ascertain that _this_ was where the Junker constructed his Junkerbot armies.

"This is where those Mongers come from." The stranger tipped his fedora at the accursed machine, as if he was admiring it for a job well done.

" ** _The Patron merely appeased those who were willing to buy. Satisfied customers, that lot! They even got a half-priced deal!_** " PodCaster exclaimed.

"Really?" The stranger laughed. "How so?"

" ** _Half of the Super Mutant tribe that lived here agreed to be tougher, bigger and faster, and the other half got shot! Fifty-percent off, clearance deals! Everything must go!_** "

"I appreciate your salesmanship."

 _That explains the Mongers,_ Sanford bit his lip nearby, watching as the robot and the man trailed towards the western portion of the room. _It doesn't explain why the Junker is doing all of this. Is it really just to get rich? Where'd he even get the resources to convert a whole damned shopping mall into an arena and robot factory?_

"You don't think the Scavenger's going to come looking for his toys?"

 _The Scavenger? Is that…_ Sanford slipped through the doorframe and knelt behind a wheeled computer tower. _…is that supposed to be_ me?

Up a brief ramp, and PodCaster led the stranger to a large, gated bulkhead.

" ** _This is it, good sir! Just one last step to your prize!_** " PodCaster laughed as sensors picked the two passersby up, and the gate rumbled and started to lift." ** _One package of the Sludge, as per requested!_** "

"And you won't tell us where it came from? This isn't our turf, we respect that." The stranger adjusted his coat.

" ** _It's outside of my programming now, sir._** "

"A shrewd businessman. I like that."

No sooner had to gate risen, and the two were moving inside the chamber, did Sanford advance again. He hid outside the new frame, peering past the arch rim.

"Is that it?" The stranger was pointing into the center of the chamber. Lying there, like a big egg, was a _pod_ of some sorts. It was laden with wires and tube-extrusions, and a film of glass capping its center spine was shrouded with wet mist and machine-sweat. Generators hummed from their bulky, barrel-like masses up against the rightwards wall, and a sprawl of computers were hard-wired to them via a forest of cables snaking across the entire chamber's floor. "Is that where he is?"

" ** _That is outside my programming too, sir. Can I interest you in a sale? A_** **free** ** _sale?_** "

"As a matter of fact, you can."

PodCaster gestured to one of the many worktables littering the chamber. Sanford squinted for a moment, and then raised his rifle to his face to utilize the scope.

The stranger was lifting a glass container off the table. It was glowing a sickly yellow through several viewing ports that were rimmed with aluminum. Even though Sanford could not see the man's face, he could tell by the prideful hunch of his shoulders, and the protuberance of his chest that he was experiencing a moment of prideful success.

He heard the stranger give off a tiny sound of wonder.

"This is _it._ " He confirmed lowly, cradling the container to his breast as if it was a newborn child. "So our transaction was not for naught. Splicer will be overjoyed."

" ** _The deliveries have already been set, with pre-packaging included, as you know._** " PodCaster's single, glowing green eye was expressionless as he watched the coated man. Something about the robot's body language read off as different. Sanford thought he looked annoyed, for a machine's sense, anyway. " ** _We're both free of loose-ends, my good sir. Another satisfied customer._** "

"Satisfied indeed." The stranger nodded to the pod in the center of the room. "I'm sure the Junker will… get him out of there. These computers are pre-War. There isn't anything they can't crack."

"… _what the fuck are you people talking about?_ " Sanford mumbled.

Something thudded by the laboratory's doorframe. There was a bestial, metallic grunt.

Sanford looked down at his own boots. Where he was standing was now bathed in a faint cone of amber light.

 ** _Thnk-thnk-thnk-thnk~!_** –went a pair of heavy boots as they stormed closer and closer.

" _Shit~!_ " –Sanford barked, whirling around, he brought the muzzle of his rifle to bear, and then, without thinking, he pulled the trigger.

Crimson beams shot out in a repeating, crack-like report. It bathed the entire chamber crimson for a good while, and it sizzled the air as if someone was cooking the very particles that made it whole.

As for the Super Monger that had been stampeding towards Sanford, the truth didn't fall so far from such a description.

The laser bolts negated the protective effects of its skin and the bionics layering its body. Its bionic head popped in a fiery spray of sparks and soot. Its shoulders crumpled and were reduced to gelatinous mounds of red oatmeal by the chewing effects of the laser beams.

Sanford drained half the battery face, all until the Monger teetered in its run, and slammed onto its chest on the floor before him, everything from the pectoral and up vaporized, and trailing red steam. Its limbs and robotics kept twitching even after it was dead.

 _Guess that does away with stealth,_ Sanford snorted, stood up and rounded the gateframe, intending to deal with the stranger and PodCaster. _Now for you two, my little-_

 ** _Clap~!_** –there was a flash of light, and before Sanford knew it, he was blind, and he could not hear anything.

Stumbling, and shouldering into the gateframe, the scavenger could feel his throat quiver, but could not hear his curses and barks. He steadied himself, blinking away coronas of light and splotches of darkness. His head was swimming like mad and he could not stand straight.

 _Smell that? Son of a bitch,_ it smelt like an expended firecracker. There was just a whiff of it, but a whiff was all he needed. _Flash-bang._

Sanford pinched an eye open and saw just a glance of the laboratory's doorframe. He saw the tail-end of the mysterious man's trenchcoat, and then nothing.

 _He ran!_

The scavenger grunted and hugged his gun, angrily shaking his head as sight slowly began to return to him.

 _That just leaves-_

" ** _-Congratulations! Sir, you have just won a once in a lifetime opportunity for the perfect time-share plan!_** " –A slight, sparkling market-tune reverberated from PodCaster's speakers as the RoboBrain rattled on its treads towards where Sanford was standing, its green eye locked on him coldly.

"- _Yeah~?_ " Sanford groaned with annoyance, running a quivering hand through his hair. "What are you gonna' do, barrel-boy? Ya' know, I've heard the brains in you guys belonged to _chimps_ once _._ "

" ** _Might I interest you in some subterranean realestate?_** " Two hatches on the sides of PodCaster's chassis flipped open, revealing a matching set of stilt-suspended flamethrower heads that flickered with untapped little fire bulbs. " ** _'Cause I intend to bury you!_** "

"- _Fuck~!_ " Sanford yipped. No sooner did he round the corner of the arch did the spot he was leant against burst into a searing wad of flames.

 ** _Whoosh~!_** –roared PodCaster's weapons. Twin, concentrated, white-hot cones of fire erupted like torrents of liquid from both sides of the announcer robot. The flamethrowers were so loud that they even drowned out the Vaudeville theme blaring from PodCaster's speakers.

"- _Fuckin' crazy ass robot!_ " The scavenger gasped, feeling sweat run down his face as the flames ate away at the other side of the arch frame.

" ** _Everything's going fast, this hot-hot-hot selling season!_** " PodCaster stated matter-of-factly, rumbling closer and closer to the arch, with twin hell-jets still vomiting from his flanks. " ** _Not the kind of fellow to settle down are you? No worries! I'll turn you around! I turn everyone around! Because I'm damn_** **good** ** _at fire-selling my inventory!_** "

PodCaster was too absorbed in the rushing screams of his throwers. He never noticed the fragmentation grenade that rolled across the ground, and clicked to a halt right in front of his treads.

At least, not until it was too late.

The RoboBrain's green eye jolted downwards.

" ** _Express deals on fire extinguishers!_** " –He got out, and then, the grenade detonated.

 ** _Bang~!_** –PodCaster vanished in a burst of smoke, glowing shrapnel and a lick of fire. There was a distinct racket of something metal hitting the floor. But after that, all was silent, save the crackle of the burning solvent that was littering the archframe and the floor.

"…I don't suppose you people take coupons." Sanford dusted some ash off his shoulder pad and leered at all the smoke swirling around the laboratory. PodCaster was lost somewhere in there, in pieces, and reduced to a pile of scrap. "How's your match gonna' go without an announcer? Damn shame."

Sanford took a step back and offered a glaring eye at the large tube-shaped orifice cut into the floor in the lab's northern corner. The robot-making machine made his eyebrows itch and his anger simmer.

 _Putting an end to that cannot be anything other than productive._

Sanford unpinned another grenade, and underhand tossed it across the room. He heard it rattle against metal, and it vanished at the tube's bottom.

 _Fuck you with a stick._

 ** _Bang~!_** –the scavenger flinched as he walked out of the lab, uncaring as flame whipped from the smoking rent in the floor, and several of the robotic claws snapped from their moorings and plummeted into the fire.

When he reached the hallway outside, he scanned it for targets. The stranger in the fedora and coat was gone, along with whatever had been in that container.

 _It's not important right now,_ Sanford grumbled under his breath, heading back the way he had come. _I need to find this Junker and rip his head off._

The scavenger's boots thudded down the hallway, and soon he was gone and off to save his Deathclaw and his robot.

Back inside the laboratory, lying in a sparking heap across the floor, PodCaster waited until a slab of his own chassis slid off his carapace and bounced onto the ground beside him. The machine was sprawled on its back, its green eye leering almost heedlessly at the ceiling above.

Through the crackle of fire from the flamethrower chemicals, PodCaster's internal systems could be heard whirring and struggling to fulfill the RoboBrain's request.

"- _PodCaster? PodCaster, dear friend, where are you? The Obstacle Course is nearing an end, and I need someone up here to be… you know… you!_ " –Came a crackly voice through the communication uplink as soon as it was established. " _PodCaster? You can't go dark on me now, this is an important-_ "

"- ** _Bzzkkk-kkkzzzk-! -JuNKer… sIr…_** " PodCaster's voice sounded out of tune. It bounced, like an audio track mutilated by a wave-form. " ** _We hAVE a…. proBLem…_** "

" _What are you talking about, Pod'? Wasn't the man happy with his gift? I'm telling you now, if you botched a deal with Splicer's goon, I'll-"_

" ** _The DeAL went… FINE…_** " PodCaster paused, as if he was making to clear phlegm from a throat he didn't have. " ** _There IS… anoTHER… ProBlem…_** "

" _Well then, what is it?_ "

" ** _ThERE are…. SHOP-LIFTERS… about-! Bzzzkrrrrkkkk~!_** "

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Everything A-Okay, pal?" Brokeman chuckled nearby.

"Of course." Calvin laughed carelessly, touching the com-bead wired into his one organic ear to kill the link. Aside from a slight twitch of his eye as his concentration and control were tested, it was impossible to tell that the Junker was suddenly overcome with an urge to shoot someone. "It appears PodCaster has run into some mechanical difficulties. I'll have to spectate in his absence."

"I'm sure your warband will be thrilled." Sarah Locust glanced at Brokeman.

" _No._ " Brokeman's face lit up like a lightbulb. He grabbed the Junker's shoulder so roughly that the cigarette Calvin had been smoking was practically catapulted from his lips. "Can I do it?"

" _What?_ " Calvin had never sounded so flabbergasted with anyone before, much less his prime patron and supporter that was Brokeman Jawlock of the SkullTakers tribe. "Why on Earth would you-?"

" _Can I?_ "

For someone who had made a reputation of smashing people's heads in, Brokeman couldn't have been more childish. He was like an overexcited pre-teen boy. Calvin wondered sometimes what would happen if someone gave the Raider warlord a toy to play with. Would he put down that god-awful killing hammer and actually run around the room with it, making airplane noises?

 _Probably._

"Go right ahead, my friend." Calvin touched the Raider's hand. "Ms. Locust-"

" _Sarah._ " The Scythe commander corrected.

"- _Sarah,_ is most correct. I'm certain that today's audience- _ninety-percent SkullTaker, ahem –_ would _love_ the surprise in a new announcer that they so adore."

"Yeah man, _fuck yeah._ " Brokeman stomped a foot, grinning like a madman. " _Yes!_ Here's where the fun starts! _Oi!_ Locust, have one of your goons wire me up!"

"Would you all excuse me for a moment?" Calvin took the opportunity to slip away.

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-

One of the fans nearly caught her. It came so close that Nyx felt a tinny glance of blade's tip drive through the air right over her back's scales.

The Deathclaw was quick, though. She swung her arm outwards, tucked into her own weight, and rolled between the death-fan chopper behind herself, and the cluster of Radscorpions in front of her.

 ** _Crunch~!_**

Blood squished and stained over her shoulders. She weighed so much that when she landed on one of the arachnids, she wound up flattening it like a pancake. Its guts decorated her back and her spines for long after.

 _This is madness. Unacceptable._

Nyx righted herself with an angry huff. She watched with hateful, yellow eyes as more of the scorpions scrambled towards her, avoiding the surrounding death-fans due only to their height.

 _If they were just a little lower, they would all-_

Nyx blinked, snarled, and lashed out with her talons to the left.

 ** _Snap~!_** –went one of the cables. The engine block produced a sharp bark, and soot catapulted from its vents when the line broke. The fan-blade kicked dust and debris everywhere as it landed on the ground, screaming, clanking, and sending shrapnel flying.

Nyx didn't wait for more than a second. Careful to avoid getting her feet caught, the reptile reached out with her long arms, and wrapped her powerful fingers over the engine's sides, wincing as unbearable heat burned into her palms despite their leathery armoring.

 _Pull through it._

The Deathclaw gave off a serpentine rumble of effort. The metal of the block creaked and steel snapped. She crushed her talons into the material, and as the fan continued to spin and jerk and wiggle, she lifted the kicking engine block up before herself, and she used it like a meat-grinder against the RadScorpions.

"- _As monsieur would say-!_ " Nyx cried over the repulsive sound of chitin and flesh being squelched. "- _Go to hell~!_ "

The RadScorpions couldn't tell the difference either way. They leapt at her and died in the fan's blades, being swept and sliced to white, gory pieces. Severed legs flew about like loose blades of shrapnel, organs clogged the fan's rinds and strips of keratin were hurled in globular streaks in every direction.

Arachnid innards flowed from the fan's underside like a fall of toxic sludge, steaming in the sand even as Nyx's cloven feet squished and compressed through it.

 ** _Bzzzzzzzzzzkkkkk~!_** –the sound was terrible. It was like a lawn mower meant to mow _bugs_ instead of grass.

"- _Come back here, you little fuckers~!_ " –Hancock screamed. Some of the scorpions had evidently tired of him, or were genuinely trying to escape. They skittered away from the rampaging robot only to be caught in swinging cones of fire jettisoning from Hancock's flamethrower. Their blackened corpses twisted and riled on the ground like expended, living scabs. " _Taste the power of the Han'!_ "

Hancock swung with his buzzsaw and clipped a scorpion just beneath his thruster in two. His gun barked and another collapsed into a pulsating mound of glowing, green goop from the plasma melting its flesh.

Exhilarated, the Mr. Gutsy reared back on his engine, and roared in triumph. The crowd was eating it up. It seemed like ten times the bottles were now bouncing off the chain mesh sealing them in.

Breathing, and scanning the grounds, Nyx let her shoulders slouch. She heaved and tossed the failing engine block over to her side. It landed, bounced once, and the propeller blade finally fell still as scorpion guts gunked up the lines inside.

" _Usiner…?_ " The Deathclaw tiredly stepped closer, minding all the other active blocks that were still hanging around them.

"- _Ha-haaaa~! Lizardlips! You're alive!_ "

Nyx retracted her head in disgust when the robot flew closer, jamming his ocu-lenses in her face.

" _That. Was. Fucking. Amazing~! Ahhhh-ha-haaaaa~!_ " Hancock screamed as loudly as his amplifiers would allow him. "Drink _that_ in, you scabs! Scorpions? Buzzsaws? _We've got you covered! For Democracy, and Roosevelt's mustache!_ "

Nyx almost threw him into one of the fan blades, but controlled herself. She tiredly slumped to her knees and curled her tail over herself, closing her eyes.

 _C'etait ferme…_ she thought, flexing her muscles to un-bunch and relax them. _That was_ too _close._

"I wonder what the judges have to say!" Hancock turned his gaze onto the Praetorian Box above. It was still looming there, as it always had been. "Well? _Speak up, you motherless bags of dogshit! Juddgggeeee meeeeeee~!_ "

" _Usiner…_ " Nyx waved a claw weakly at him. "…I beg of you, to shut the _hell up_."

"Eat me!"

 ** _Creeeeekkkk~!_** –both Hancock and Nyx flinched when the air released a terrible, high-pitched whine. Even the audience began to calm down a bit. The Raiders and tribesmen layering the bleachers looked up at the box, and for a moment, there was a still moment of serenity even throughout the arena.

"… _Mm,_ this is lovely, actually." Nyx mumbled, closing her eyes again in the silence.

"…. ** _so… so is this thing on? Oh, it is? It is! Hey. Hey, yeah! Fuck. So, uh… So, fuck. Hey~! You boys and girls out there, guess who?_** "

-The arena erupted. The crowd screamed, cheered, cursed, and few gunshots went off.

A round dusted off the sand right beside Hancock. The robot turned on the wire mesh barrier hatefully.

"- _Hey~! Which one of you mother-fucking reds just did that~? I'll rip off your dick!_ " He aimed one of his weapon arms at the wall. Some of the Raiders in the crowd ducked, and others clambered over one another to move.

It gave Nyx an idea.

" _Usiner,_ " She gasped, rising onto one of her clawed feet. " _usiner!_ Y-You are- _dieu forgive me –_ you are a _genius!_ "

" _Ah-haaa! See that? I knew you'd come around some day, Gecko-Ass! You'd see that- the Han –has the smarts to-_ waitasecond, whatdidyousay-?"

"They're _mocking_ you, _usiner._ " The Deathclaw persisted, standing, casting a glance at the box overhead. "They're all picking fun at you. T-They scoff your ability to kill and… and _kick-ass-_ yes."

" ** _So there's a script, for this shit, but I hate scripts. Scripts can fuck off. Listen! It's time for part_** **two** ** _of this mess! These two… things, this, lizard, and this robot, got through the Obstacle Course! I, Brokeman Jawlock, congratulate them!_** "

The crowd clapped and jeered. More bottles flew off the mesh, and so too did some other forms of blunt objects and offal.

Hancock scanned the crowds and looked back at Nyx.

"What say you, Crocodile-Woman?" He jabbed his buzzsaw at her.

"They _mock_ you." Nyx grinned toothily, pointing at the stands. "They _scoff_ you. They are not cheering you on, _usiner,_ they are _berating you._ "

"…No." Hancock uttered after a long pause. " _No._ That's not true! _That's a lie! Falsities and lies~!_ "

"It is _true._ " Nyx glanced up at the Praetorian Box. "-And up there? In _la tour?_ They are laughing at you over drinks and smoke. You were brought here to be made _fun of._ "

"No! _No! You speak deceit and- and-_ " Hancock stuttered. "- _fuck! Curse my limited, bad-mouthed vocabulary!_ "

"Bad-mouthing. They _all_ bad-mouth you." Nyx swept a claw over the stands. "All of them, _usiner._ They are all… uhm… _Communists,_ and reds! _Oui._ Communists, and _Chi-nese_ sympathizers."

" ** _It's time for the Hazard Course! Sponsored by me! Brokeman Jawlock of the SkullTakers! Bring on the shit! Yeah!_** " –The speaker link cut, but not before there was a tiny: " ** _…did I do good…?..._** " –in the background.

The ground rumbled again. Nyx glanced over her shoulder as the cables suspending the engine blocks were reeled in. Automated systems were rewinding them. The fans were shutting off and the dust around the arena was settling.

"… So…" She looked back down when Hancock spoke again. He sounded very quiet all of a sudden. "…You're telling me that I've been reduced, to a caged canary, at the behest of an audience of fuckbags. Is what you're saying?"

" _Usiner,_ I…" The Deathclaw licked her nose in thought, shrugged, and put a claw on the back of the robot's chassis. "-That is _exactly_ what I am saying."

" ** _Activating Laser-Beams!_** " –Warlord Jawlock howled over the arena's speakers.

" _Laser Beams?_ " Nyx mumbled.

* * *

-0-0-0-0-0-


End file.
